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EW  WALKS  IN 
OLD  WAYS 


ALVIN  HOWARD  SANDERS 


UNIVERSITY  FARM 


LIBRARY 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 


"But  each  narrow  path  and  each  leafy  lane 
That  winds  through  a  woodland  or  borders  a  plain 
As  it  beckons  you  far  from  the  broad  Highway, 
If  you'll  just  let  it  lead  you  wherever  it  may, 
Will  take  you  to  By-Way  Land'' 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 


In  Which  Relationship 

with  Certain  Humble  Folk  of  the  Roadside 

and  the  Fields  is  Re-established 


By 
Alvin  Howard  Sanders 

Editor  "The  Breeder's  Gazette," 

Author  of  "The  Road  to  Dumbiedykes,"  "The 

Black  Swans,"  "In  Winter  Quarters,"  etc. 


.    .    .    tlNo  stream  from  its  source 

FIoivs  seaward,  hoiu  lonely  soever  its  course^ 

But  iv hat  some  land  is  gladdened.** 

— OWEN  MEREDITH 


Chicago 

Sanders  Publishing  Company 
1921 


Copyright,  1921 
Sanders  Publishing  Company 
All  Rights  Reserved 


UNIVERSITY  FARM 


"An,  LOVE!    Could  Thou  and  I  with  Fate  conspire 
To  grasp  this  sorry  Scheme  of  Things  entire, 
Would  we  not  shatter  it  to  bits  —  and  then 
Re-mould  it  nearer  to  the  Hearts  Desire." 
—  OMAR  KHAYYAM 


469700 


" FORE ! " 

THE  writer  has  no  apologies  to  make 
for  the  thinly-veiled  criticism  of 
the  exactions  of  modern  life  that  runs 
like  a  thread  through  the  so-called 
"Idle  Hour"  series,  of  which  this  is  the 
fourth.  He  would  not  go  Thoreau's 
length,  but  does  intend  these  little 
volumes  to  stand  as  a  fairly  good- 
natured  protest  against  a  mode  of 
living  that  compels  mankind  to  devote 
an  altogether  unreasonable  proportion 
of  his  days  to  the  endless  task  of 
providing  the  things  demanded  by 
twentieth  century  civilization;  leaving 
insufficient  opportunity  for  the  rational 
enjoyment  of  life. 

If,  at  times,  he  verges  on  the  cynical 
to  an  extent  that  jars  the  suscepti- 
bilities of  those  who  accept  as  sound 
the  prescribed  routines  and  conven- 
tionalities, he  can  only  reply  that 
nothing  short  of  a  jolt  now  and  then 
makes  any  impression, 
[vii] 


If  anything  he  has  written  shall 
serve  to  make  men  think  just  a  little 
more  of  the  General  Plan,  and  a  little 
less  about  their  own  personal  advance- 
ment, the  time  stolen  from  his  own 
business,  to  his  own  financial  detri- 
ment, and  devoted  in  many  instances 
to  so-called  trifling  things,  will  pos- 
sibly not  have  been  entirely  lost. 
THE  AUTHOR. 
Chicago,  September,  1921. 


[viii] 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  BY-WAY  LAND i 

II.  THE   SEEN  AND   THE   UN- 
SEEN         5 

III.  A  TIME  FOR  EVERYTHING     21 

IV.  HAY  DAYS  AND   MEADOW 

LARKS 35 

V.  Two  OF  A  KIND     ....     51 
VI.  BY-WAYS     AND     BUTTER- 
FLIES   65 

VII.  PURPLE  MARTINS  AND  THE 

MOON 83 

VIII.  "A  BOARD  WALK"  OF  THE 

WOODS 99 

IX.  WHY  is  A  WEED?  ....   113 

X.  FREE  SEED  DISTRIBUTIONS  127 

XI.  IMPROVING  ON  NATURE  .    .    143 

XII.  "WHAT'S  IN  A  NAME?"  .    .   161 

XIII.  THE    CALL    OF    THE    UN- 

KNOWN   177 

XIV.  AN      "INDIAN      SUMMER" 

DREAM 195 

XV.  WINDING  THE  CLOCK     .    .213 
XVI.  HIGH-WAY  LAND     ....  227 


ix] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 
I 

By-Way  Land 

A  WONDERFUL  land  is  By-Way 
Land 

If  only  you  understand! 

But  first  you  must  leave  the  main- 
traveled  road 

That  links  city  and  town  to  town. 

You  must  throw  'way  your  pack  and 
lighten  the  load 

And  dump  a  big  lot  of  your  troubles 
down 

When  you  start  for  By-Way  Land. 

It's  not  on  the  map,  this  By-way  Land; 
No  sign-boards  guide  you  there; 

[i] 


•     •*.•»••     «.••••       •      •  » 

••. : :/:  *:**;•::    :  ••;•  .  j 
.-...*.«•.•.•    .-..,«   -  . 


Walks  in  Old  Ways 


But  each  narrow  path  and  each  leafy 

lane 
That  winds   through   a   woodland   or 

borders  a  plain 
As  it  beckons  you  far  from  the  broad 

Highway, 
If  you'll  just  let  it  lead  you  wherever 

it  may, 
Will  take  you  to  By-Way  Land. 

It's   not   a   long  journey  to   By-Way 

Land 

If  only  you  seek  it  right. 
Steal  away  from  the  crowd  and  the  roar 

and  the  rush 
Of  the  motors  and  trolleys,   the  jams 

and  the  crush, 
From  the  traffic  that  thunders   inces- 

santly by, 
And  look  for  blue  sky  —  or  the  flight  of 

a  crow! 
It  won't  matter  much  just  which  way 

you  go. 


[2] 


By -Way  Land 


Any  bird,  any  bee,  any  creature  that 

knows 
Where  cattle  are  grazing  and  meadows 

are  sweet, 
Where  orchards  and  hedge-rows  and 

wild  roses  meet, 
Will  show  you  the  Highway  to  By- 

Way  Land. 


[3 


II 

The  Seen  and  the  Unseen 

WE  were  late  coming  out  this  year. 
Not  that  the  little  place  itself 
had  lost  any  of  its  old-time  charm,  but 
the  spring  of  1921  was  a  period  when 
most  of  us  were  busy  dissipating  profits 
we  thought  we  had  made  during  the 
late  great  war  of  wars.  We  all  forgot, 
apparently,  that  the  war  had  to  be 
paid  for,  and  that  the  price  was  big. 
It  was  a  time  when  men  had  to  put 
every  ounce  of  themselves  possible 
into  the  oars  by  which  the  old  boat  of 
business  is  supposed  to  be  propelled. 
The  worst  of  it  was,  no  matter  how 
much  effort  was  expended,  so  strong 
ran  the  adverse  tides  that  not  only 
was  forward  progress  quite  impossible, 
but  it  was  only  with  difficulty  one 

is] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

could  escape  the  drift  upon  dangerous 
rocks.  Finally,  however,  about  mid- 
June  a  stronger  arm  came  to  my  relief, 
and  I  was  put  ashore  at  a  port  remote 
from  the  road-steads  of  commerce  and 
industry. 

I  knew  I  was  going  to  give  up  my 
seat  for  a  time  at  least,  for  two  old 
friends  of  mine  had  lately  called  to  me 
in  tones  not  to  be  successfully  re- 
sisted. One  was  a  whip-poor-will;  the 
other  a  yellow-billed  cuckoo.  How 
these  shy  creatures  of  wildwood  thick- 
ets ever  found  their  way  across  the 
miles  of  brick  and  stone  and  concrete 
that  separated  me  at  the  time  from 
the  big  world  of  the  out-of-doors,  I 
shall  never  know.  They  did  not  come 
nor  go  together.  One  broke  the  still- 
ness of  the  night  with  startling  sudden- 
ness, repeating  his  old  familiar  cry 
insistently  for  perhaps  a  hundred  times, 
and  then  was  gone.  He  was  so  far 
from  his  own  accustomed  haunts,  that 
I  took  the  call  as  personal  to  myself. 

[6] 


The  Seen  and  the  Unseen 

There  are  few  more  elusive  feathered 
friends  than  the  cuckoo  with  the  yellow 
bill.  You  may  often  hear  him  in  the 
trees,  but  will  require  a  quick  and  well- 
trained  eye  actually  to  discover  him. 
He  is  known  by  his  note  only  to  most 
people,  and  they  usually  refer  to  him 
as  "the  rain  crow."  Of  course,  he  is 
not  a  crow  at  all,  any  more  than  the 
"snowy  cricket"  of  the  August  night 
is  a  "tree  toad."  This  yellow-billed 
cuckoo  voiced  his  message  very  early 
one  morning,  just  before  the  sun  had 
shown  his  ruddy  rim  above  the  still 
gray  waters  of  the  lake;  and  later  on 
was  heard  again,  and,  as  he  wove  a 
spell  of  memories  of  olden  days,  I 
fancied  I  could  see  and  hear  "Black 
Swans"  and  nodding  plumes  and  leafy 
whisperings  at  the  end  of  a  road  that 
leads  from  winter  quarters  out  to  an 
enchanted  castle  in  the  woods  where 
a  Fairy  Princess  sleeps  and  waits. 

It  is  not  a  lofty  pile  of  stone  with 
draw-bridge,  moat  and  rugged  battle- 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

ments.  Iron  gates,  not  difficult  to 
manage,  are  all  that  bar  your  en- 
trance. The  only  sentinels  that  guard 
the  Sleeping  Beauty  are  the  oaks  and 
lilacs,  and,  once  we  find  ourselves  in- 
side, the  Sweet  Spirit  of  the  Place 
awakes,  and  straightway  a  burden 
falls.  You  will  not  hear  it  drop,  for 
grass  is  velvet. 

The  evening  paper  comes,  but  sud- 
denly I  have  lost  my  interest  in  the 
market  page.  I  should  much  rather 
study  the  coloring  of  that  royal  purple 
Clematis.  The  mail  arrives,  consisting 
mainly  of  brokers'  advertisements  of 
new  bond  issues  by  corporations  in  dis- 
tress, and  unpaid  bills;  but  can't  you 
see  the  beauty  of  the  lightning  playing 
yonder  in  that  "thunder  head?"  Now 
the  blessed  rain  is  streaming  from  the 
cloud  as  it  approaches  fast  flying  from 
the  west!  I  know  of  a  promissory  note, 
too,  that  has  to  be  taken  care  of  some- 
how during  the  next  three  weeks,  but, 
dearly  beloved,  just  scent  the  infinitely 
[8] 


The  Seen  and  the  Unseen 

delicate  fragrance  that  the  dashing 
shower  has  started  from  the  Sweet- 
briar  rose  I  planted  now  near  twenty 
years  ago!  There  was  a  real  promise 
to  pay  on  the  part  of  that  tiny  rootlet 
when  I  set  it  there  one  May-time  of 
the  days,  "lang  syne,"  and  here  am  I 
collecting  all  the  interest  many  times 
compounded!  Here  am  I  so  over- 
joyed at  freedom  once  again  regained 
that  I  am  straightway  asking  you  to 
sit  with  me  beneath  the  greenwood 
tree;  just  child  enough  in  spirit  to 
want  to  tell  you  all  about  it;  just 
guileless  enough  to  imagine  that  every- 
body else  is  as  interested  in  all  I  see 
about  me  as  I  am  myself!  Well,  you 
are  not  compelled  to  follow  just  be- 
cause I  am  obliged  to  write. 

I  have  said  that  we  were  behind  our 
usual  schedule  coming  out,  but  the 
moment  I  saw  a  hollyhock  in  bloom 
and  heard  a  cricket  underneath  the 
window,  I  knew  at  once  that  Nature 
was  as  much  ahead  of  her  accustomed 

[9] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

dates  as  we  were  behind  our  own. 
There  are  some  things,  though,  out 
here  that  travel  with  unerring  cer- 
tainty, regardless  of  the  early  or  the 
later  rains,  and  so  independent  of  all 
solar  vagaries  that  you  may  know 
through  all  the  centuries  just  where  to 
find  them  on  a  certain  hour  of  any 
given  date.  The  fixed  star  changeth 
not,  and  I  did  not  need  to  go  out  to 
the  front  gate  beyond  the  trees,  and 
look  toward  the  zenith  the  first  night 
of  our  arrival,  to  know  that  the  most 
beautiful  sight  in  all  the  northern 
summer  sky  was  exactly  where  it 
should  be.  You  may  talk  Altair,  An- 
tares,  Spica  and  Arcturus  all  you  like — 
I  stand  by  Vega.  There  are  a  few 
people  in  this  world,  too,  whom  I  am 
just  as  sure  about  as  I  am  of  that  steel- 
blue  sparkling  diamond  in  the  stellar 
brooch  called  Lyra;  but  only  a  few — 
only  a  very  few.  Thrice  blessed  are 
those  who  have  even  one  they  may 
depend  upon  with  perfect  confidence. 
[10] 


The  Seen  and  the  Unseen 

Strange,  isn't  it,  what  a  hold  a  little 
old  place  like  this  can  lay  upon  your 
affections?  No,  not  necessarily  upon 
yours,  but  mine.  A  lot  of  our  ac- 
quaintances wonder,  I  suppose,  what 
in  the  world  I  can  see  in  it.  Well,  it  is 
often  the  unseen  rather  than  the  scene 
itself  that  binds,  and  to  the  casual 
visitor  the  real  treasured  growths  en- 
twined about  these  walls  and  doorways 
are  quite  invisible.  That  Ampelopsis 
clinging  so  tightly  with  its  tiny  little 
tendrils  apparently  feels  as  I  do  about 
it.  It  never  had  to  be  forced  or 
assisted  or  its  attachment  stimulated 
or  maintained  by  any  outside  help. 
From  the  first  day  I  had  my  foot  upon 
this  particular  bit  of  soil  I  began  to 
take  root  and  try  to  make  the  place 
my  own,  just  as  that  ivy  has  spread 
its  green  drapery  thickly  and  closely 
all  about  the  spaces  it  has  completely 
and  persistently  invested.  The  wood- 
bine that  serves  now  so  gracefully  as 
an  outer  curtain  on  the  latticed  win- 

[ii] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

dows  of  the  porch  had,  on  the  contrary, 
to  be  helped  before  it  became  a  party 
to  the  scheme.  We  had  to  support  its 
efforts  at  first  with  wire  or  twine. 
It  seems  happy  enough  now,  after 
some  eighteen  years,  but  it  would 
really  not  take  much  of  an  effort  on 
your  part  or  mine  to  coax  it  away. 
You  see,  these  vines  are  like  ourselves. 
They  differ  in  their  ideas  of  growth 
and  development  and  devotion,  just 
as  we  do,  and  you  will  find  that  the 
Virginia  creepers  of  this  world  largely 
outnumber  the  cultivated  Ampelopsis 
of  your  catalogues,  with  which  this 
reference  was  begun.  Of  course,  the 
cinquefoliated  plant  is  vastly  hardier. 
It  laughs  at  zero,  and  defies  all  drouths. 
Adverse  conditions  in  time  will  surely 
kill  the  other.  Still  the  ivy  more  than 
compensates  in  beauty,  refinement  and 
in  fast  adherence  to  anything  to  which 
it  gives  itself,  for  its  unfortunate  lack, 
in  this  iron  climate,  of  mere  physical 
strength.  Tear  away  from  its  em- 
[12] 


The  Seen  and  the  Unseen 

brace  that  to  which  it  so  steadfastly 
clings,  and  it  falls  and  dies.  The 
creeper,  on  the  contrary,  deprived  of 
the  support  with  which  it  is  familiar, 
will  wander  freely  round  about,  and 
take  up  readily  again  with  anything 
that  comes  its  way.  It  is  a  good 
"mixer,"  has  overflowing  vitality, 
makes  friends  with  everybody,  and 
therefore  enjoys  universal  popularity. 
The  ivy  seeks  and  finds  some  one 
thing  it  loves,  and  you  must  not  tear 
it  loose,  for,  if  you  do,  it  will  not  rise 
again. 

The  woodbine  probably  cannot  quite 
understand  what  makes  the  ivy  pursue 
a  course  that  will  not  stand  rough 
handling,  and  doubtless  scorns  its 
single-heartedness  of  purpose;  but  that 
attitude  can  by  no  possibility  change 
the  other  creature's  nature.  It  was 
born  a  totally  different  type,  and  in  the 
end  will  inevitably  be  crowded  out  and 
overcome  by  coarser  growths.  We  are 
taught,  however,  that  in  Nature  it  is 

[13] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

always  the  fittest  that  survives;  so, 
admire  the  ivy  as  we  may,  its  sturdier 
companion  is  apparently  the  one  the 
Lord  meant  should  inherit  the  earth 
and  the  fullness  thereof.  Just  the 
same,  I  propose  to  cultivate  and  pro- 
tect my  Ampelopsis  to  the  last,  for  I 
like  it  best.  Anyone  can  have  common 
creepers  with  them  for  the  asking. 
You  have  to  care  for  the  other,  and 
somehow  there  is  a  double  joy  and 
happiness  in  protecting  and  saving 
that  which  one  loves,  and  which  if 
neglected  you  know  will  wither  and 
decay.  I  can  destroy  that  beautiful 
growth  on  our  north  wall  with  a  pocket 
knife  in  one  minute,  although  it  has 
taken  years  to  produce  it.  You  can't 
kill  the  Virginia  creeper  with  an  axe. 
The  one,  therefore,  is  the  object  of  my 
particular  solicitude.  The  woods  are 
full  of  the  other. 

It  is  that  which  I  cannot  now  see 
around  the  fireside  where  the  black, 
swan-like  andirons  stand  that  makes 

[14] 


The  Seen  and  the  Unseen 

that  lounge  and  easy  chair  so  precious. 
It  is  not  what  that  cherry  tree  is  today 
that  appeals  to  me  so  much  as  the 
thought  of  what  a  little  thing  it  was 
in  the  spring  of  1902.  It  is  not  the 
automobile  there  in  the  garage  that 
I  think  about  so  much  when  the  sun 
goes  down  these  days  as  of  little 
"Pride" — a  Shetland  Pony — that  once 
munched  his  hay  and  oats  in  a  stall 
that  has  long  since  disappeared.  The 
whole  place  is  haunted.  There  are 
spirits  in  every  nook  and  corner  of  the 
cottage,  and  good  fairies  live  in  every 
hedge  and  oak  and  clump  of  shrubbery. 
You  cannot  see  them,  to  be  sure,  but 
that  is  no  proof  that  they  are  not  there. 
For  me,  at  least,  they  have  and  shall 
have  to  the  end  of  time  a  real  existence. 
They  are  all  around  me  now,  but  if  I 
undertook  to  point  them  out,  or  even 
name  them,  probably  they  would  fade 
away  as  quickly  as  the  "insubstantial 
fabric"  of  any  other  dream.  But  I  am 
sure  they  would  come  back  to  bless 

[15] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

and  comfort,  at  my  beck  and  call,  in 
hours  of  need. 

The  walls  of  Dumbiedykes — as  the 
name  itself  would  indicate — are  sup- 
posedly silent,  but  I  assure  you  they 
are  not.  On  the  contrary,  they  speak 
frequently  to  those  who  can  claim  a 
real  acquaintance  with  them.  The 
peculiar  thing  about  it  is  that  they 
either  cannot  or  will  not  commune 
with  strangers.  There  are  a  few  be- 
sides ourselves  who,  whenever  they 
rest  beneath  its  roof,  hear  these  mystic 
voices;  but  you  must  have  endeared 
yourself  in  some  real  heart-gripping 
way  before  the  walls  give  up  their 
stories  of  the  years. 

As  in  the  case  of  the  elves  that  live 
in  the  eaves  outside,  these  wall-fays 
not  only  evade  the  notice  of  all  save 
those  who  love  them,  but  their  speech 
is  for  those  who  hear  it  only.  True, 
they  lay  no  injunction  of  secrecy  upon 
those  to  whom  they  talk.  They  do  not 
need  to  do  so,  for  there  is  that  in  their 
Fi61 


The  Seen  and  the   Unseen 

narrations  which  quite  defies  transla- 
tion into  common  speech.  You  could 
not  tell  anyone  else  all  they  say  to  you 
if  you  tried  each  one  of  all  the  languages 
heard  at  the  abandoned  construction 
of  the  tower  of  Babel.  Their  presence 
may  be  revealed  to  you  by  the  merest 
whisperings,  but  if  your  heart  be 
properly  attuned  its  strings  will  vibrate 
instantly  in  sure  response.  We  have 
always  these  dear  house-guests  with 
us,  and  of  course  they  help  to  drive 
away  the  wicked  little  bogie-men  in 
blue  who  sometimes  gain  admission 
even  into  the  happiest  of  lives. 

There  is  another  mystery  about  it 
all:  these  spirits  speak  only  of  the 
absent.  Let  any  one  of  those  they 
know  and  recognize  appear  in  person, 
and  they  fly  away.  It  is  only  after  a 
familiar  face  is  gone  that  these  friendly 
little  folk  come  out  and  chat.  They 
may  perch  upon  the  mantel  over  the 
fireplace.  They  may  be  seen  some- 
times around  the  book-shelves  or  the 

[17] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

cushions  of  the  swinging-seat  out  on 
the  porch.  I  have  known  them  to 
gather  upon  the  moulding  of  a  magic 
oval  mirror  that  hangs  in  the  hallway 
at  the  foot  of  the  stairs;  and  here, 
with  just  a  little  bit  of  help,  they  will 
draw  for  you  real  portraits  of  loved 
ones  far  away. 

I  might  sell  you  the  place.    You 
have  not  wealth  enough  to  buy  my 
phantoms;    and,  if  you  had,  I  could 
not  deed  them  to  you.     They  are  ours 
alone,   and  as   truly  non-transferable 
as    they    are    intangible.      You    have 
only  my  word  for  the  truth  of  what  I 
write,    but   in   every   land,    in   every 
clime,    wherever    human    minds    and 
human  hearts  hold  fast  to  all  that  is 
near  and  dear,  I  will  find  you  witnesses 
to  prove  that  such  things  be. 
Just  a  little  retreat  in  By-Way  Land 
In  the  edge  of  a  burr-oak  wood. 
It  is  not  very  wide,  it  is  not  very  high; 
You  may  not  even  see  it  in  passing  by, 
But  it's  there  in  the  arms  of  the  sheltering 

trees, 

[18] 


The  Seen  and  the  Unseen 

Where  it's  found  by  the  sunbeams  and  sought 

by  the  breeze 
That  is  born  on  the  prairie  somewhere  in  the 

west; 

And  in  the  seclusion  of  that  cosy  nest, 
With  its  pictures  of  peace  and  its  bidding  to 

rest, 
You  may  always  forget  the  great  Highway's 

demand, 
For  it's  stowed  away  snugly  in  By-Way  Land. 


Ill 

A  Time  for  Everything 

RECREATION  is  a  word  that  must 
be  hyphenated  to  be  rightly  inter- 
preted. Re-creation!  That  is  the 
underlying  thought.  No  time  for  it? 
Well,  just  take  time  or  make  time  for 
it  somehow.  You  do  not  have  to  cir- 
cumnavigate the  earth  looking  for  it. 
There  is  not  a  farmer  or  a  factory 
hand  but  can  find  ways  and  means  of 
getting  his  mind  off  his  troubles, 
temporarily  at  least,  within  a  mile  of 
his  own  particular  treadmill,  if  he 
only  will;  and  he  owes  it  to  himself 
and  to  those  who  have  to  live  with 
him  to  do  it  occasionally  at  least. 
Work  is,  of  course,  the  law  of  our  being, 
but  there  is  no  animal,  no  plant,  no 
phenomenon  in  Nature  but  has  some- 
[21] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

thing  to  say  to  us  on  that  subject  that 
is  well  worth  knowing.  Men  and 
women  will  go  all  day,  and  for  more 
than  half  the  night,  but  I  have 
noticed  that  nerve  specialists  are  not 
overworked  among  the  mudhens  and 
muskrats  of  the  marsh.  The  Apostle 
Paul  was  fond  of  asserting  that  "there 
is  a  time  for  all  things."  There  is 
a  time  to  laugh  and  a  time  to  weep; 
a  time  to  dance  and  a  time  to  sleep; 
a  time  to  sow  and  a  time  to  reap; 
a  time  to  give  and  a  time  to  keep; 
and  this  truth  one  can  easily  see  exem- 
plified by  observing  the  wise  balance 
between  work  and  play,  between 
activities  and  repose,  maintained  by 
all  animals  and  plants — save  man.  If 
you  don't  believe  it,  look  around  you. 
I  don't  care  whether  you  follow  a 
butterfly  or  a  bull  of  Bashan;  whether 
you  study  the  life  of  a  hog  or  a  hya- 
cinth. They  will  all  tell  you  the  same 
thing,  and  you  will  probably  go  right 
on  ignoring  all  they  say — and  pay  the 
[22] 


A  Time  for  Everything 


price.  That's  what  most  of  us  are 
doing. 

Last  week  we  had  been  invited  to 
attend  a  big  reception  in  the  city. 
Some  of  our  human  neighbors  drove 
in.  They  had  been  busy  all  day; 
quite  as  busy,  I  should  say,  as  the 
birds  and  bees  and  big  and  little  bugs 
that  live  alongside,  but  that  was  not 
enough.  All  our  other  friends,  save 
a  screech  owl  that  lives  across  the 
way,  had  gone  early  to  bed,  as  usual. 
The  sky  was  overcast.  The  moon  had 
passed  the  full.  The  cloud-screen 
lianging  between  the  silent  fields  and 
woods  and  Vega,  with  her  million 
gleaming  followers,  obscured  even  the 
bright  overhead  lights  of  our  rural 
Broadway. 

I  had  seen  not  long  since  the  real 
Gotham  artery;  not  so  busy  as  in  the 
old  effervescing  midnight  hours,  but 
still  an  apparently  happy  hunting- 
ground  for  predatory  bipeds,  with  a 
taste  for  poultry.  Of  course,  like  all 

[23] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

other  provincials  from  Chicago,  Osh- 
kosh  and  Kokomo,  we  had  first  taken 
in  the  conventional  "show,"  where 
some  supposed  "comedian"  sings  and 
dances  through  three  acts,  while  girls 
pose  and  parade  as  frequently  as  the 
time  required  for  a  change  of  abbre- 
viated costume  will  permit.  Now, 
let  no  one  imagine  that  just  because 
one  may  see  the  beauty  of  a  wheat- 
field  or  a  hedgerow  that  he  need 
necessarily  be  oblivious  of  it  in  other 
fields.  My  only  quarrel  is  with  those 
who  only  care  for  it  in  certain  par- 
ticular forms.  The  fact  is  that  the 
more  ready  one's  response  to  all  beauty 
in  the  natural  world  the  more  certain 
is  one's  appreciation  of  it  in  the  lilies 
and  roses  that  now  and  then  burst 
into  flower  in  the  garden  of  humanity. 
That  is  not  to  admit,  however,  that 
I  saw  anything  in  Forty-second  Street 
that  New  York  night  that  compared 
very  favorably  with  our  larkspurs, 
catbirds  and  rugosas.  At  least  the 

[24] 


A  Time  for  Everything 


latter  are  not  "made  up"  to  with- 
stand the  glare  of  the  solar  spotlight. 
I  am  willing  to  concede  that  a  woman 
glowing  in  blended  pink  and  white 
and  crimson  of  her  own — and  espe- 
cially if  Nature  has  endowed  her 
mentally  as  well — is  truly  as  great  a 
glory  in  the  human  gallery  as  any 
perfect  Premier  or  Columbia  in  the 
florist's  window. 

Something  near  1,000  miles  of  dis- 
tance separates  the  Biltmore,  and  all 
it  stands  for,  from  the  bird-bath  in 
the  mint-bed  underneath  the  big  white 
oak  in  the  corner  of  the  lawn  at  Dum- 
biedykes.  I  confess  that  I  can  enjoy 
the  animated  life  of  the  one  as  well 
as  the  sylvan  charms  of  the  other, 
when  in  the  mood  for  it.  There  are 
times  when  the  saxophone,  the  banjo 
and  the  drum  in  syncopated  harmony 
strike  a  responsive  chord,  just  as  there 
are  other  hours  when  nothing  but 
contact  with  open  spaces  and  blue 
sky  will  satisfy.  Both  serve  us,  and 

[25] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

were  meant  to  serve  us;  and  happy 
are  those  who  have  not  allowed  a  love 
for  either  one  to  rob  them  of  the  power 
to  find  something  good  in  the  other. 
I  find  fault  with  those  only  who  can 
go  crazy  about  "jazz,"  and  yet  never 
think  of  stopping  to  listen  to  a  blue- 
jay's  cry  or  to  follow  the  fitful  twink- 
ling of  a  firefly  on  a  summer  night. 

It  is  true  that  there  is  splendor  in- 
describable and  mystery  in  the  dawn, 
and  poetry  a-plenty  in  the  sunset. 
There  is  a  real  joy  in  the  teeming 
life  of  forest,  field  and  stream  all 
through  the  long,  bright  summer  days. 
There  are  strange,  weird  witcheries  in 
the  moonlight,  and  thrills  in  thunder- 
storms, but  the  peace  that  passeth  all 
understanding  you  will  find  in  the  out- 
of-door  world  on  a  moonless  night  in 
June.  If  you  are  quite  alone,  there 
will  be  absolutely  nothing  to  come 
between  yourself  and  Nature  at  her 
best.  If  you  are  in  the  country  and 
will  go  outside,  and  lose  yourself  even 
[26! 


A  Time  for  Everything 


for  a  moment  in  the  soft  outlines  and 
deep  shadows  of  a  world  at  rest,  my 
word  for  it  your  sleep  will  be  sweeter 
because  of  the  benediction  you  will 
have  received.  No,  I  will  not  say 
that.  I  am  forgetting  all  the  time 
that  not  all  are  affected  profoundly  by 
Mother  Nature's  moods.  It  is  pos- 
sibly a  great  misfortune  to  sense  and 
feel  them  all  instinctively;  to  be  lifted 
sometimes  to  great  heights,  and  again 
plunged  abjectly  into  abysmal  depths; 
the  change  as  swift  perhaps  as  the 
shifting  of  the  winds,  or  the  proverbial 
bolt  of  lightning  out  of  an  apparently 
cloudless  sky.  The  aeolian  harp  has 
little  power  over  its  own  weird  music, 
and  is  not  a  popular  instrument.  It 
registers  true,  however. 

So  when  I  heard  about  the  wonderful 
time  everybody  had  at  the  big  recep- 
tion, when  told  of  the  beauties  of  the 
out-of-door  dancing  platform,  with 
"Jap"  lanterns  and  electric  illumina- 
tions, and  of  the  hour  at  which  the 

[27] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

restless  milling  around  came  to  an  end, 
I  knew  that  our  dusky,  slumbering 
landscape  had  been  a  wise  yet  word- 
less commentary  upon  the  feverish 
fete  in  progress  that  hot  night  inside 
the  city  walls. 

An  almost  forgotten  poet's  descrip- 
tion of  one  historic  scene  of  that  sort 
fits  them  all.  You  will  find  it  in 
"Childe  Harold."  Once  upon  a  time 
it  was  part  of  a  schoolboy's  favorite 
declamation,  so  he  does  not  have  to 
refer  to  the  original  text  in  this  con- 
nection. It  just  comes  unbidden: 

"There  was  a  sound  of  revelry  by  night, 
And  Belgium's  capital  had  gathered  then 
Her  beauty  and  her  chivalry; 
And  bright  the  lights  shone  o'er  fair  women 

and  brave  men. 

A  thousand  hearts  beat  happily, 
And  when  music  arose  with  its  voluptuous 

swell, 
Soft  eyes   looked   love   to  eyes   that  spake 

again, 
And  all  went  merry  as  a  marriage  bell." 

[28] 


A  Time  for  Everything 


Thus  was  ushered  in  the  fateful 
dawn  of  Waterloo,  and  gayly  the 
revelers  rode  to  battle  through  dim 
forest  paths. 

"And  Ardennes  waves  above  them  her  green 

leaves 

Dewy  with  Nature's  tear-drops  as  they  pass, 
Grieving,  if  aught  inanimate  e'er  grieves, 
O'er  the  unreturning  brave.     Alas! 
E'er  evening  to  be  trodden  like  the  grass 
Which  now  beneath  them,  but  above  shall 

grow 
In  its  next  verdure." 

The  Germans  fought  with  the  Eng- 
lish against  Napoleon  that  day,  and, 
a  little  more  than  a  century  later,  the 
allied  French  and  British  watched 
helplessly  the  Prussians  occupy  the 
abandoned  palace  of  the  Belgian  king. 
Such  are  the  mockeries  of  human 
history;  such  the  crimes  committed 
in  the  name  of  civilization  and  Chris- 
tianity; such  is  man's  boasted  super- 
iority over  the  herds  and  flocks  grazing 
ever  and  forever  in  calm  content  upon 
a  thousand  hills! 

[29] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

Those  who  go  to  bed  with  the  sun- 
set in  the  stillness  of  a  grassy,  leafy 
world  are  indeed  a  busy,  hungry  lot 
when  the  light  again  begins  to  break. 
In  fact,  one  mighty  swelling  chorus 
precedes  Aurora's  pageant  of  progress 
round  the  globe.  One  degree  of  longi- 
tude after  another,  from  east  to  west, 
awakes  to  claim  the  largesse  that  is 
strewn  always — and  commonly  with 
lavish  hand  —  from  her  bounteous, 
never-failing  chariot  of  gold.  Bleating 
of  lambs,  squealing  of  pigs,  bawling 
of  calves,  baying  of  dogs,  crowing  of 
cocks,  cawing  of  crows,  the  robin's 
rousing  reveille,  and  pleadings  of  baby 
purple  martins  in  the  nest!  All  face 
the  new  day  with  a  joy  and  hope  not 
often  manifest  in  the  morning  hours 
where  men  and  women  and  alarm 
clocks  dwell. 

The  advent  of  the  sleeping  porch  in 
modern  architecture  is  a  hopeful  sign. 
The  number  of  "stuffy"  bedrooms  in 
this  world  is  equaled  only  by  the  sands 

[30] 


A  Time  for  Everything 


of  the  sea.  What  is  the  big  idea? 
Possibly  race  suicide.  Even  a  wild 
goose  knows  that  the  more  you  shut 
the  oxygen  out  the  more  trouble  Nature 
has  in  getting  rid  of  the  carbon  that 
kills. 

Night-birds  that  wear  fur  or  feathers 
instead  of  "swallow-tails"  may  be 
found  dozing  and  dreaming  through 
the  daylight  hours  in  some  hollow 
tree  or  hidden  darkened  nest.  They 
don't  have  to  go  downtown  to  the 
office  at  eight  or  nine  or  ten  A.  M., 
lest  some  other  restless  bird  or  beast 
wrests  control  of  their  bread  and 
butter  from  them.  All  creation,  civ- 
ilized man  alone  excepted,  understands 
that  there  is  ample  time  in  life  for 
everything,  if  you  but  observe  the  law. 

Collectively,  man  regards  himself  as 
supreme,  and  looks  with  more  or  less 
contempt  upon  the  rights  of  every- 
thing else.  Individually,  it  is  "my- 
self first  and  you  afterwards."  There 
is  only  one  possible  cure  for  this  im- 

[31] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

possible  attitude  of  mind:  knowledge 
of  our  real  place  in  the  whole  big 
scheme,  yet  not  one  in  a  million  cares 
or  thinks  enough  about  that  to  make 
the  least  attempt  to  get  his  proper 
bearings.  Anyone  who  undertakes  to 
point  it  out  will  have  few  followers  and 
many  critics.  The  inertia  of  the  mass 
is  too  well  established.  Thoreau  laid 
bare  some  of  the  hollowness  and  gruel- 
ling requirements  of  our  boasted  civil- 
ization, and  found  a  half-dozen  dis- 
ciples. He  who  challenges  man's  es- 
sential superiority,  and  rails  at  his 
boasted  morality,  need  look  for  little 
sympathy  from  those  about  whom  he 
plainly  speaks  the  truth.  Personally 
I  know  only  a  few  who  really  care 
enough  about  the  rest  of  the  world  to 
interest  themselves  in  its  study. 

There  is  something  worth  while  to 
be  learned  in  every  square  yard  of  the 
out-of-doors,  whether  you  are  among 
the  grain  binders  at  their  work,  or 
watching  honey  bees  in  the  golden 

[32] 


A  Time  for  Everything 


pollen  of  a  pink  wild  rose.  Did  you 
ever  notice  the  marvelous  deep-sea 
blue  of  the  spiderwort  blooming 
alongside  the  roadway  in  the  grass? 
For  most  of  you  it  has  no  existence 
whatsoever.  You  might  miss  the 
"movies"  if  you  do  not  hurry;  so  if 
I  prefer  rather  to  loiter  by  the  way 
and  wait  for  the  sunset  that  is  to  be 
so  rare  this  evening,  or  for  great  Jupiter 
and  far-off  Saturn  to  show  their  splen- 
did lights,  I  shall  not  have  much 
company. 

We  might  all  with  profit  know  some- 
thing more  about  our  relatives  that 
live  in  nests  or  burrows  differing  some- 
what from  our  own.  They  wear  dif- 
ferent raiment,  but  their  vital  organs 
function  in  the  universal  way.  They 
have  habits,  aspirations,  and  the  im- 
mortality that  is  implied  in  repro- 
duction, varying  not  in  the  least,  so 
far  as  I  can  see,  from  our  own.  If  any 
one  man  knew  all  that  Linne  knew  of 
plants,  all  that  Fabre  knew  of  bugs, 

[331 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

he  might  then  write  something  really 
worth  printing.  As  it  is,  most  of  us 
may  only  make  our  petty,  futile  ob- 
servations, and  journey  on  to  make 
room  for  someone  else.  Still,  if  you 
care  to  walk  along  with  me  a  little 
way  you  will  be  welcome. 


b 


34 


IV 
Hay  Days  and  Meadow  Larks 

OOMEWHERE  in  the  distance  I 
O  hear  a  sound  that  drives  me  to 
this — a  mowing-machine  cutting  its 
way  through  tall,  waving,  ripening, 
falling  grass;  and  I  can  no  more  resist 
the  temptation  to  speak  about  it  than 
a  pig  can  help  crawling  through  a 
convenient  hole  under  a  gate  into  a 
garden  where  all  manner  of  green 
things  dear  to  porcine  palates  grow. 
You  may  not  be  interested  in  mowers 
or  in  mowing.  You  may  not  hear  any- 
thing resembling  music  in  the  song  of 
the  sickle  bar.  It  may  bring  to  your 
mind  perhaps  only  thoughts  of  the 
market  value  of  the  product,  or  the 
high  cost  of  harvesting.  If  so,  turn 
away  right  here,  and  let  me  browse 

[35] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

around  alone,  for  the  click  of  that 
machine  in  motion  bridges  for  me  all 
the  space  that  lies  this  side  of  Boyland. 
Hay  time!  Hay  days  of  glorious 
memory!  How  I  loved  the  coming  of 
the  sharp  knives  in  the  meadow!  And 
yet,  at  the  last  moment,  I  was  always 
worried  as  the  teams  were  started. 
Not  that  I  would  stop  the  proceeding; 
for  good  rich  grass  and  clovers  must 
not  be  allowed  to  go  uncut.  I  knew 
the  value  of  well-stowed  lofts  when  we 
were  all  in  winter  quarters.  In  fact, 
there  was  no  event  of  the  year  that 
brought  more  real  delight  than  the 
day  when  the  big  gray,  patient  Per- 
cherons,  wearing  white  cotton  fly  cov- 
ers, were  started  on  the  job.  But  there 
was  one  source  of  real  anxiety  as  the 
crop  began  to  come  down.  I  knew 
that  the  broad  expanse  of  timothy  and 
red  clover  was  the  home  of  many 
meadow  larks,  and  that  every  nest  was 
in  deadly  peril.  And  so  my  joy  in  the 
hay  harvest  was  clouded  by  concern. 

[36] 


Hay  Days  and  Meadow  Larks 

Those  who  get  nothing  out  of  coun- 
try life  and  harvest  scenes,  save  figures 
on  the  debit  or  the  credit  side  of  the 
ledger  when  the  accounts  are  balanced, 
are  warned  to  read  no  further  than 
this  page,  for  I  shall  have  nothing  to 
say  that  will  interest  them  in  the  least. 
The  greater  part  of  my  life  has  been 
spent  in  hoeing  and  harvesting,  some- 
times real  grain,  and  sometimes  only 
"chaff."  At  any  rate,  stout  harness 
has  been  worn;  so  don't  begrudge  me, 
therefore,  if  I  cast  it  off  an  hour  or  two 
again,  and  ask  another  little  "run  to 
grass."  I  only  call  the  attention  of 
the  intensely  practical  ones  who  make 
up  the  great  majority  in  this  human 
hive  to  this  one  fact. 

If  the  Chicago  packers,  for  example, 
only  credited  themselves  with  the  meat 
they  get  out  of  the  animals  they  buy, 
theirs  would  be  a  discouraging  and  a 
losing  enterprise.  But  they  have 
found  out  that  there  is  much  more 
than  mere  bacon  and  beef  to  be  had 

[371 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

from  that  which  is  passing  by  them. 
In  this  farming  business  it  is  not 
merely  the  bushels  and  the  pounds 
produced  that  may  be  entered  in  the 
credit  column.  Those  are  the  big,  sub- 
stantial, essential  things,  of  course, 
without  which  there  is  nothing;  but 
there  are  blessings  and  genuine  satis- 
factions that  should  come  to  every 
human  being,  I  care  not  what  the  size 
of  his  bank  account  or  his  mortgage, 
the  number  of  his  acres,  the  size  of  his 
house  or  wage,  or  the  nature  of  his 
work;  provided  that  he  lives  upon  the 
soil,  lives  where  the  stars  can  be  seen 
at  night,  lives  where  the  air  is  fit  for 
human  lungs,  lives  where  he  is  in 
hourly  partnership  with  the  great  one 
God  called  Nature,  and  has  any  appre- 
ciation of  his  true  relations  to  the 
universe.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
hired  man  has  the  same  interest  in  the 
sunrise  and  the  milky-way  of  the 
summer  sky  as  the  owner  of  a  great 
estate.  The  hardest-working  tenant 

[38] 


Hay  Days  and  Meadow  Larks 

has  just  as  much  stake  in  the  rustling 
of  the  night  wind  in  the  tree  tops,  in 
the  trickle  of  the  raindrops  from  the 
roof,  as  the  president  of  the  Steel 
Corporation. 

True,  you  can  neither  sell,  eat  nor 
wear  sun  rays,  stars,  west  winds  nor 
showers,  but  you  can  feed  your  soul, 
if  you  have  any,  once  in  a  while,  as 
well  as  your  stomach.  You  can  satisfy 
your  mind,  if  it  is  properly  organized, 
as  well  as  your  body.  You  can  clothe 
your  thoughts  in  beauty  now  and  then 
—if  you  only  try — as  well  as  your  back 
with  fine  apparel.  If  you  have  not 
the  will  nor  the  power  to  get  all  you 
fairly  can  out  of  your  environment, 
you  are  to  be  pitied;  that's  all. 

Almost  anyone  can  find  a  few  spare 
hours  for  books,  and  he  who  cares  can 
get  enough  out  of  the  most  elementary 
works  on  botany,  zoology,  astronomy, 
geology,  entomology  or  ornithology  to 
enable  him  to  extract  enjoyment  out 
of  any  plant  that  grows,  any  beast 

[39] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

that  walks,  any  planet  that  shines  in 
the  heavens,  any  rock  turned  up  by 
the  plow,  any  bug  or  bird  that  flies. 
You  don't  have  to  go  to  college  to  get 
an  inkling  of  the  real  wonders  of  the 
world.  You  don't  have  to  be  a  mere 
visionary  just  because  you  find  a  lot 
of  things  that  interest  you  in  earth 
and  air,  the  knowledge  of  which  yields 
no  actual  cash.  There  are  at  least  a 
few  coppers  of  comfort  you  can  carry 
around  with  you  that  no  man  can  get 
away  from  you,  even  in  these  trying 
days  of  A.  D.  1921  in  which  I  write. 

After  your  physical  needs  are  pro- 
vided for,  why  waste  all  your  days 
plotting  and  planning  and  dreaming 
about  additional  acres  when  you  know 
very  well  that  you  may  have  a  whole 
section  of  rich  black  soil,  and  still  be 
bankrupt  in  character,  health  and 
happiness?  With  which  few  remarks 
I  am  going  back  to  the  meadow. 

By  mere  chance  I  discovered  a  nest 
alongside  a  young  bull-thistle  the  day 

[40] 


Hay  Days  and  Meadow  Larks 

the  mowers  were  started,  and  of  course 
you  all  know  what  the  wise  bird  does 
when  suddenly  surprised  while  sitting 
in  her  solitary  grassy  sanctuary.  Into 
the  cover  afforded  by  the  tall  growth 
of  grass  she  darts  suddenly;  in  fact, 
with  almost  incredible  speed,  not  tak- 
ing wing,  but  creeping,  or  rather  run- 
ning in  a  crouching  position,  and  com- 
ing shortly  to  a  sudden  stop.  At  first, 
if  you  did  not  know  that  a  love  nest 
had  been  located,  you  would  for  an 
instant  fancy  you  had  flushed  perhaps 
some  wary  little  quadruped;  but  soon 
you  see  and  note  the  cunning  of  the 
winged  creatures  of  the  fields.  Build- 
ing as  they  do  build  upon  the  ground, 
they  display  in  self-defense  of  their 
homes  a  strategy  worthy  of  Field 
Marshal  Foch  himself.  Assuredly  we 
are  not  so  much  wiser  than  the  rest  of 
creation  as  we  sometimes  think! 

Lady  Lark  employs  the  tactics  most 
certain  to  startle  and  distract  your 
attention  from  the  nest.  She  is  care- 

[41] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

ful  not  to  disappear  entirely,  because 
if  she  did  you  might  give  her  up  and 
easily  locate  her  most  prized  posses- 
sions. She  has  no  thought,  however, 
of  permitting  you  to  lose  sight  of  her- 
self. In  fact,  she  is  clearly  inviting 
you  to  follow  her.  You  advance  to- 
wards her  a  step,  and  she  creeps  rapidly 
on  a  few  yards  further.  Pursue  her, 
and  presently — having  drawn  you  by 
these  well-planned  movements  quite 
away  from  those  precious  eggs  or 
young,  as  the  case  may  be — she  springs 
into  the  air  and  sails  away. 

After  cautioning  the  driver  of  the 
mowing  machine  who  was  now  cutting 
near  the  nest,  I  got  a  good  stout 
sharpened  stake  and  drove  it  into  the 
ground  alongside  the  Maison  du  Lark, 
to  mark  the  spot.  No  one,  not  even 
the  average  hired  "hand,"  would  de- 
liberately destroy  those  five  little  red- 
throated,  big-mouthed  bug  pockets; 
and  that  expression  reminds  you  that 
being  a  bird  mother  is  no  sinecure. 

[42] 


Hay  Days  and  Meadow  Larks 

You  have  not  only  to  provide  your 
own  bread  and  butter,  but  work  hard 
all  day  at  the  apparently  hopeless  task 
of  filling  up  those  downy  caverns  there 
in  the  grass.  I  walked  over  to  call  on 
them  this  morning.  The  mother  was 
foraging  about  where  the  hay  was  now 
down  all  around  the  stake-protected 
domicile,  just  as  old  "Biddy"  herself 
searches  the  ground  for  food.  She 
saw  me  come  near,  but  this  time  made 
no  attempt  at  flight,  and  manifested 
not  the  slightest  fear  when  I  walked 
up  to  the  brood,  and  bent  over  to  in- 
spect the  family.  She  now  apparently 
recognized  in  me  a  friend  instead  of  a 
foe,  and  all  the  while  her  mate  sat  on 
guard  on  top  of  a  martin  house  on  a 
pole  in  the  distance,  repeating  steadily 
the  call  known  the  lark-loving  world 
over  as  the  sweetest  and  most  plain- 
tive bird-note  of  the  year;  and,  as 
I  walked  away,  I  saw  the  watchful 
matron  in  her  endless  patrolling  of  the 
ground  about  the  nest  pursuing  a 

[43] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

scampering    chipmunk    into    his    own 
neighboring  preserves. 

Now  this  particular  chipmunk,  by 
the  way,  was  just  as  busy  in  its  sphere 
as  the  bird  in  hers,  for  a  week  later  a 
fine  litter  of  half-a-dozen  "pups"  be- 
gan their  own  experiences.  You  may 
see  them  feeding  around  in  the  short 
grass,  if  you  look  for  them — cute  little 
rascals — and,  as  you  approach  them, 
first  one  and  then  another,  speeds  back 
to  the  entrance  to  the  hole,  in  the 
depths  of  which  they  were  born.  They 
do  not  disappear  unless  you  come  too 
near,  but  sit  all  huddled  close  to- 
gether, one  or  two  of  them  standing 
erect,  and  all  watching  and  wondering 
what  is  going  to  happen  next — just  a 
bunch  of  inexperienced  stripes,  with 
little  black,  beady  eyes  and  tiny  ears, 
every  sense  alert  to  possible  danger. 
This  has  been  a  great  year  for  these 
people.  On  a  quarter-section  of  blue- 
grass  given  over  to  golf  links  there  are 
a  great  number  of  bunkers,  constructed 

[44] 


Hay  Days  and  Meadow  Larks 

for  the  delectation  of  the  players  of  the 
game,  and  for  the  real  delight  of 
the  chipmunks.  The  grass-covered 
mounds  of  earth,  and  their  accom- 
panying sand-pits,  could  not  please 
chipmunkies  better  if  they  had  been 
planned  by  one  of  their  own  best 
architects.  These  hazards  of  the  green 
are  easy  to  bore  into,  on  account  of 
having  been  built  up  from  the  loose 
earth  excavated  from  the  "traps,"  and 
there  is  sand  and  all  manner  of  roots 
and  dainty  growths  and  bugs  for  food 
and  real  companionship. 

I  wonder  how  many  people  have  any 
knowledge  of  a  chipmunk's  singing 
voice.  These  mid-summer  days  dur- 
ing bright  sunny  hours,  when  few 
humans  are  prowling  about,  you  can 
hear  their  clear,  soft,  high-pitched, 
rippling  notes  on  every  hand — if  you 
have  ears  for  such  utterly  inconse- 
quential things.  A  friend  asked  one 
day  what  sort  of  bird  it  was  that  made 
these  sounds.  The  fact  is  that  if  the 

[45] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

chipmunk's  happy  song  really  came 
from  a  bird  throat  the  Audubon  So- 
ciety people  would  have  a  lot  to  say 
in  praise  of  it.  It  is  more  bird-like 
in  its  quality  than  any  note  I  know  in 
connection  with  the  quadruped  crea- 
tion. But  we  are  forgetting  our  lark- 
lets. 

Later  on  I  passed  that  way  again. 
The  mother  lark,  still  foraging,  took 
wing  with  a  fine  fat  morsel  of  some 
sort  in  her  beak,  but  instead  of  flying 
with  it  to  the  nest — its  obvious  destin- 
ation— she  had  in  the  meantime  be- 
come suspicious  and  undertook  to  lie 
to  me  about  the  location  of  her  birdlets 
by  sailing  away  beyond  it,  and  alight- 
ing in  deep  grass,  that  had  not  yet 
been  cut,  some  distance  further  on. 
Anything  to  keep  you  away  from  the 
baby  birds!  I  permitted  her  finesse  to 
work,  and  did  not  approach  the  sacred 
spot. 

A  semi-tropic  cloudburst  the  other 
evening  did  the  new-mown  hay  no 

[46] 


Hay  Days  and  Meadow  Larks 

particular  good,  and  taxed  all  the 
resources  of  birdland  to  protect  the 
nestlings  from  the  deluge.  It  came 
out  of  the  north,  near  the  close  of  an 
oppressive  day.  Usually  such  violence 
approaches  us  from  the  west,  traveling 
towards  the  great  lake,  instead  of  from 
it.  It  took  several  days  to  clear  away 
the  minor  debris  of  leaves,  twigs,  dead 
branches — and  a  few  live  ones — left 
by  the  gusty  northern  gale  that 
stretched  the  rainfall  into  horizontal 
streams.  Objects  a  hundred  yards 
distant  could  not  be  distinguished 
through  the  flying  rivers  of  mist  and 
rain.  From  the  porch  we  could  almost 
fancy  we  were  in  the  heart  of  a  heavy 
storm  at  sea.  The  steady  deck,  how- 
ever, soon  dispelled  the  notion,  and 
presently  we  could  see  drenched  tree- 
tops  instead  of  blue  walls  of  water 
riding  out  the  squall. 

The  young  larks  were  now  about 
ready  to  leave  the  nest.  Their  downy 
covering  had  turned,  almost  miracu- 

[47] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

lously,  into  real  feathers.  They  say 
that  the  processes  of  digestion  and 
assimilation  progress  in  bird  interiors 
with  astounding  rapidity.  I  can  vouch 
for  the  truth  of  that  statement.  So 
very  rapid  was  the  growth  of  the 
youngsters  we  had  saved  from  the 
mower's  passage  that  the  second  day 
after  the  big  storm  they  were  gone. 
I  know  they  were  neither  drowned  nor 
blown  away,  because  I  saw  them  the 
morning  after  looking  fit  and  fat  and 
fairly  feathered.  I  had  hoped  to  see 
the  process  of  coaxing  the  larklets  out 
among  the  haycocks,  but  they  were 
too  swift  for  me  in  their  "get-away." 

Again  the  sun  is  shining.  The  hay  is 
dry  and  cured.  The  men  are  pitching 
it  by  hand  in  the  good  old-fashioned 
way;  two  forking  it  up  onto  the  load, 
growing  more  unwieldy  every  moment, 
and  two  stowing  it  so  that  it  will  carry 
safely  to  the  barn.  The  horses,  wait- 
ing for  the  word  to  go,  are  happy,  I 
should  say;  for  the  work  is  light  corn- 
US] 


Hay  Days  and  Meadow  Larks 

pared  with  dragging  a  big  gang  plow 
through  stiff  clay,  and  they  are  stand- 
ing in  the  midst  of  plenty,  with  a 
fragrance  in  their  nostrils  that  French 
perfume-makers  have  tried  in  vain  for 
years  to  reproduce — the  scent  of  new- 
mown  hay. 


[49] 


V 

Two  of  a  Kind 

PLAYING  a  round  of  golf  the  other 
day  I  noticed  that  my  caddy — a 
boy  of  ten  years  perhaps — would  every 
now  and  then  reach  down  into  his 
pocket,  pull  something  out,  hold  it  in 
the  hollow  of  his  hand  and,  while 
waiting  for  me  to  play  my  shot,  study 
his  treasure,  whatever  it  was,  with 
evident  interest.  Finally  I  got  a 
glimpse  of  it — a  young  toad,  very 
much  alive.  It  wasn't  bigger  than  a 
good-sized  June  bug.  Asked  where  he 
got  it,  the  boy  said,  "Down  near  the 
creek."  Asked  what  he  was  going  to 
do  with  it,  he  replied,  "Don't  know." 
By  and  by  a  gopher  scampered  across 
our  path,  and  disappeared  in  a  hole. 
The  boy  followed  it,  and  an  idea  struck 

[Si] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

him.  I  don't  know  what  it  was.  I 
didn't  ask  him,  but  I  think  it  was  just 
such  a  thought  as  might  have  occurred 
to  me  under  similar  circumstances. 
He  wonders  if  a  toad  and  a  gopher  might 
not  like  to  try  living  together;  or  at 
least  enjoy  having  a  friendly  visit  to 
talk  over  matters  of  mutual  interest 
connected  with  their  existence  in  the 
fields;  and  so  he  fishes  "baby"  toad 
out  of  his  pocket,  and,  handling  him 
with  the  greatest  consideration,  stoops 
down  and  places  him  carefully  on  the 
ground  close  to  gopher's  doorway,  and 
leaves  him  there. 

We  could  not  very  well  stop  to  see 
what  happened  afterward.  I  wanted 
to  do  so,  and  of  course  the  caddy  would 
rather  study  that  sort  of  situation  than 
lug  golf  clubs  around  the  links  for  a 
person  with  a  handicap  of  twenty-six. 
I  didn't  dare  tell  the  youngster  that  I 
was  just  as  much  interested  in  his 
performance  as  he  could  possibly  be 
himself,  because  it  won't  do  for  players 


Two  of  a  Kind 


of  the  game  to  encourage  such  non- 
sense in  their  caddies.  The  boys  are 
supposed  to  keep  their  eyes  upon  the 
ball  when  you  make  a  stroke,  and  not 
be  chasing  chipmunks.  But  golf  play- 
ers themselves  do  not  always  pay  at- 
tention to  that  fundamental,  so  why 
expect  too  much  of  caddies  who  live 
in  town,  and  don't  get  a  chance  every 
day  to  have  fun  with  garter  snakes  and 
frogs  and  everything? 

I  was  not  playing  much  of  a  game 
that  day,  so  far  as  score  was  con- 
cerned. I  was  just  having  a  walk  with 
the  normal,  healthy  boy  by  my  side; 
my  mind  and  thoughts  traveling  much 
more  nearly  along  the  lines  of  the  cad- 
dy's interest  than  upon  beating  my 
opponent  to  the  putting  greens.  There 
was  not  much  conversation  between 
the  boy  and  myself  upon  the  subjects 
uppermost  in  both  our  minds,  .or  the 
very  good  reason  already  cited;  but  I 
knew  perfectly  well  what  he  was 
thinking  about  when  I  saw  him  watch- 

[53] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

ing  that  bird-dog  hurrying  along  the 
hedge,  with  nose  close  to  the  grass. 
I  think  he  saw  me  following  the  course 
of  the  dog  rather  than  the  erratic 
flight  of  our  golf  ball,  but  he  wasn't 
supposed  to  address  me  or  comment 
upon  anything  in  the  heavens  above 
nor  the  earth  below,  because  he  was 
just  a  caddy;  and  of  course  you  have 
no  reason  to  expect  a  live,  wholesome, 
nature-loving  boy  of  ten  to  be  any- 
thing else,  when  carrying  your  golf 
bag,  but  the  personification  of  dignity 
and  attention  to  the  business  of  the 
hour.  But  somehow  some  form  of 
mental  telepathy  seemed  to  be  working 
as  between  the  two — the  old  boy  and 
the  young — and  the  life  that  was  in 
evidence  all  around  us;  and  the  more 
gophers  and  big  brown  caterpillars  we 
saw  the  more  shots  it  seemed  to  re- 
quire to  get  that  golf  ball  into  the  cup 
we  were  supposedly  headed  for.  A 
"scrappy"  sparrow,  or  something — 
perhaps  the  boy  knew,  I  didn't  know 

[54] 


Two  of  a  Kind 


— was. next  seen,  chasing  some  sort  of  a 
big  awkward  slow-flying  creature  over- 
head. 

I  thought  of  a  lot  of  things  about 
this  aerial  combat  that  I  was  eager  to 
speak  about  to  somebody;  but  my 
opponent  of  the  golf  match  had  his 
eye  always  upon  his  ball,  not  on  birds 
or  humble  bees,  and  it  would  be  fatal 
to  good  discipline,  from  the  standpoint 
of  "Pete"  (the  best  caddymaster  I 
know)  for  me  to  discuss  sparrow- 
hawk  mid-air  sparring  matches  with 
the  boy.  So  I  held  my  tongue,  and 
immediately  proceeded  to  "top"  my 
midiron  shot  in  front  of  the  biggest 
bunker  on  the  place.  While  digging 
the  ball  out  of  the  pit,  a  broad-backed 
brown  beetle  of  a  sort  I  had  never  seen 
before  came  crawling  down  the  grassy 
slope  of  the  "cop"  directly  in  front  of 
me.  Now,  how  can  anyone,  with  any 
interest  at  all  in  this  big  round  world 
and  all  its  wonders,  concentrate  upon 
such  a  stupid,  dead  object  as  a  golf 

[55] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

ball  lying  in  a  heel-hole  in  the  sand 
when  a  strange,  queer-looking  creature 
of  fat  girth,  and  lugging  a  whole  lot  of 
legs  and  things,  is  waiting  to  become 
acquainted  with  you?  I  took  two  or 
three  shots  to  get  out  of  there,  but  I 
had  found  a  new  friend. 

On  the  next  tee  I  hooked  my  shot 
into  a  ditch  near  a  clump  of  willows. 
The  boy  got  there  first,  and  located 
not  only  the  ball  but  a  flicker  sitting 
on  a  lower  limb  wrestling  with  himself. 
Moulting  of  course.  First  the  bird 
yanked  out  one  of  those  canary-colored 
feathers  that  grow  on  the  under-side 
of  the  wings,  and  then,  with  his  sharp 
little  toes,  scratched  his  head  as  vigor- 
ously as  if  "Kernel  Cootie"  himself 
had  hold  of  his  red-trimmed  bonnet. 
Incidentally,  I  noticed  also  that  there 
was  one  tree  in  that  clump  that  needed 
trimming  badly.  Tomorrow  I  would 
go  down  there,  and  help  it  out  of  its 
evident  trouble.  Meantime,  someone 
playing  up  behind  us  yells  "Fore!" 

[56] 


Two  of  a  Kind 


— the  signal  on  the  links  that  you  are 
holding  back  other  players;  whereupon 
I  "hike"  the  ball  out  onto  the  fairway 
again,  and  on  we  trudge. 

The  twelfth  hole  at  Midlothian  is  the 
"water  hole."  All  well-ordered  golf 
links  are  supposed  to  have  a  pool  or 
pond  or  creek  or  river  for  the  players 
to  shoot  the  balls  across,  under  pen- 
alty of  losing  the  ball  (if  it  be  a 
"sinker")  and  probably  losing  the  hole 
to  the  opposing  player.  But  many  of 
us  use  a  lightweight  ball  that  will 
float  in  water  when  we  come  to  this 
particular  hazard.  My  caddies  are  all 
glad  when  we  reach  it.  In  the  first 
place,  all  real  boys  find  happiness  in 
the  water.  Unfortunately  a  lot  of 
"grown-ups"  prefer  something  else. 
Boys  dearly  love  to  be  on  it  or  in  it. 
In  the  second  place,  there  is  a  flat- 
bottomed  boat  on  this  particular  pond, 
with  two  short  poles  for  propelling  it 
about  in  quest  of  floating  golf  balls, 
when  driven  into,  instead  of  over,  the 

[57] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

artificial  lake.  In  the  third  place, 
they  all  know  by  this  time  that  I  am 
just  as  fond  of  that  water  as  they  are, 
and  can  commonly  count  for  certain, 
when  I  pull  out  my  mashie  in  front  of 
this  reservoir,  upon  being  given  an 
opportunity  to  indulge  their  aquatic 
instincts.  I  do  not  often  disappoint 
them.  I  may  lose  my  golf  match,  but 
I  not  only  please  the  caddies — for  two 
or  three  of  them  always  jump  into  the 
boat,  unless  "called  down"  for  so 
doing,  to  render  the  service  which  one 
could  do  just  as  well  alone — but  at  the 
same  time  delight  my  opponent,  who 
has  already  played  a  pretty  shot  from 
the  same  teeing  ground  over  the  water 
onto  the  green,  and  has  a  sure  "three" 
and  a  possible  "two"  to  win  the  hole; 
whereas  he  knows  that  I  cannot  pos- 
sibly get  out  of  the  water  and  land  my 
own  ball  in  the  cup  under  four  or  five 
or  six,  according  to  what  further  diffi- 
culties may  be  encountered  on  the  way. 
There  are  cat-tails,  too,  growing  at  the 

[58] 


Two  of  a  Kind 


edge  of  this  water  that  bring  visions 
of  loons  and  turtles  and  lilies  that  float 
on  the  surface;  of  big,  bass- voiced 
bull  frogs  that  "boom"  in  mysterious 
hiding  places;  of  blue  herons  taking 
wing.  And  another  "hole"  is  lost. 

As  you  play  off  for  the  sixteenth,  you 
will  note  on  the  right,  say  150  yards 
away,  a  young  cottonwood  growing 
near  the  edge  of  the  ''rough."  That  is 
a  technical  term,  unfamiliar  perhaps 
to  those  who  have  something  better 
to  do  than  chase  a  golf  ball  all  through 
a  golden  August  afternoon.  It  desig- 
nates the  uncut  grass  on  either  side  of 
the  smoothly-shaven  course  you  are 
theoretically  playing  on.  If  you  get 
out  there  when  the  red  clover  or 
timothy  or  bluegrass  or  dandelions  and 
meadow  daisies  are  in  their  glory,  you 
may  enjoy  the  botanical  display,  in 
the  midst  of  which  you  sometimes  seek 
your  golf  ball  all  in  vain,  and,  if  you 
find  it,  you  may  do  a  lot  of  mowing,  in 
trying  to  get  out  of  your  trouble,  with 

[59] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

a  dull-edged  iron  which  is  not  a  good 
substitute  for  a  scythe  in  actual  hay- 
making; but  you  will  also  be  bringing 
secret  joy  again  to  your  caddy,  as  well 
as  to  the  fellow  whose  main  object  in 
life  just  at  the  moment  is  to  win  that 
game  from  you.  The  boy  is  pleased 
because  out  there  he  is  likely  to  flush 
some  little  creature  wearing  either  fur 
or  feathers,  and  your  adversary  ap- 
proves of  your  futile  "chopping"  at 
your  deeply-imbedded  ball  for  obvious 
reasons  of  his  own. 

Now,  I  have  watched  this  little 
cottonwood  for  many  years.  It  stands 
there  alone;  no  other  tree  near  it.  It 
was  planted  there  one  day,  now  long 
ago,  by  the  wind  and  the  rain.  The 
breeze  carried  the  white-winged  seed 
across  the  open  spaces  from  some  big 
parent  cottonwood  far  away.  The  rain 
so  saturated  its  dainty  sails,  supplied 
by  nature  for  just  such  flights,  that  it 
could  wander  no  further.  It  had 
reached  its  predestined  resting  place; 
[60] 


Two  of  a  Kind 


and  down  among  the  grass-roots  the 
"baby"  tree,  in  due  course  of  time,  was 
born.  For  the  first  few  years  it  had 
a  hard,  and  apparently  hopeless,  strug- 
gle. The  soil  was  neither  loose  nor 
rich  in  plantfood.  The  summers  were 
dry,  and  the  winters  severe,  but  it 
persevered.  Still  it  was  clearly  un- 
happy. This  season,  however,  there 
has  come  a  sudden  change  for  the 
better.  It  is  now  rich  in  foliage,  and 
its  top  is  mounting  upward  and  spread- 
ing rapidly.  It  is  clearly  now  the 
making  of  a  fine  big  specimen  of  its 
kind.  With  all  its  faults  as  a  shade 
tree  around  a  house,  there  is  one  thing 
about  the  full-grown  cottonwood  that 
almost  makes  up  for  the  annual  nuis- 
ance of  its  shedding  blossoms:  the 
splendid  rustling  of  its  delicately- 
balanced  leaves  fluttering  in  the  wind. 
Ever  hear  it?  If  not,  listen  to  it  the 
next  time  you  have  a  chance.  It  will 
repay  attention,  if  your  ears  are  in  any 
degree  attuned  to  the  eternal  har- 
[61] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

monies.  Its  smaller  relative,  the 
quaking  aspen,  has  the  same  gift  of 
music. 

Because  of  the  interest  I  have  taken 
now  for  seven  or  eight  seasons  in 
watching  the  fight  this  waif  of  the 
fields  has  been  making,  I  almost  in- 
variably "slice"  my  golf  ball  out  of  its 
proper  course  right  up  to  the  spot 
where  the  tree,  now  in  the  heyday  of 
its  youth,  is  flourishing.  So  you  will 
see  from  all  this  how  difficult  it  is  to 
play  this  outdoor  game  when  you  have 
so  many  really  worth-while  things  to 
distract  your  eye  and  thought;  and 
if  an  adult  cannot  avoid  all  this  mental 
philandering  en  route,  why  should  we 
expect  ten-year-old,  town-bred  boys 
to  caddy  for  us  without  also  lapsing 
now  and  then?  However,  the  average 
person  probably  pays  more  attention 
to  his  game,  and  decidedly  less  to  toads 
and  trees  than  I  do;  which  helps  to 
explain  why  I  never  expect  to  become 
a  "first-flighter"  on  the  golf  links. 
[62] 


Two  of  a  Kind 


As  we  come  to  the  eighteenth  (last) 
hole  on  the  course,  we  are  to  drive  over 
a  ditch,  say  140  yards  distant.  But 
why  do  so  when,  by  driving  into  it, 
you  get  the  chance  of  stopping  to  fish 
your  ball  out  of  the  tall  weeds  that 
find  such  a  congenial  home  in  those  soft 
damp  depths?  But — would  you  be- 
lieve ? — most  of  those  I  see  playing  the 
game  never  seem  to  think  anything 
about  the  fun  of  scouting  up  and  down 
those  banks,  the  favorite  haunt  of  a  lot 
of  things  that  live  and  move  and  crawl 
or  swim  or  jump  or  fly  for  you  when- 
ever you  stop  to  see  them.  In  fact, 
the  "golf  fan"  has  only  one  thought  in 
his  head.  If  he  had  two  or  three  he 
would  not  be  a  "scratch"  player.  He 
must  be  blind  and  deaf  and  dumb  to 
all  but  one  thing.  He  is  just  a  machine 
for  firing  a  ball  at  a  mark.  He  is  no 
more  alive  to  anything  else  than  an 
automatic  repeating  rifle  would  be. 
So  what  does  he  get  out  of  it  all,  any- 
how? He  shoots  the  ball  far  over  the 

[63] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

ditch,  with  all  its  native  charms, 
hustles  across  the  foot  bridge  as  if 
there  were  no  such  things  in  all  the 
world  as  crabs  and  tadpoles  and  funny 
water-bugs.  He  "holes  out"  in  three, 
hurries  to  catch  the  train  for  Chicago, 
and  fondly  imagines  that  he  has  had 
an  afternoon  in  the  country.  Well,  he 
has,  I  suppose;  but  he  has  missed 
something  which  the  caddy  hasn't.  And 
that  night  no  snowy-crickets  of  the 
woods  shall  trill  him  into  dreamland. 
He  probably  goes  to  see  "The  Follies." 

There  is  plenty  to  do  in  By-Way  Land; 
If  you're  lonely  it's  all  your  own  fault. 
There's  the  dog  waitin'  for  you  a-waggin'  his 

tail 

Just  dying  to  scout  ahead  down  the  old  trail 
Where  the  rabbits  are  plenty.    And  maybe 

there's  quail 

To  be  flushed  'long  the  fence  by  the  field 
Where  the  wheat's  getting  ready  its  harvest  to 

yield! 
Why,  it  couldn't  be  better,   no  matter  who 

planned 
The  delights  that  await  you  in  By-Way  Land ! 


VI 

By-Ways  and  Butterflies 

HIGHWAYS  are  all  right  for  prac- 
tical transportation  purposes, 
but,  unless  I  have  to  drive  to  town  for 
something  or  other,  give  me  a  by-way; 
preferably  one  that  is  via  non  grata 
to  motor-mad  folk,  and  the  less  it  is 
patronized  by  even  horse-drawn 
vehicles  the  better.  In  fact,  it  need 
not  be,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  even 
a  decent  bridle  path. 

I  love  a  good  horse.  There  are  few 
better  companions.  A  dog  goes  well 
with  a  horse.  I  like  the  combination, 
particularly  when  you  just  hit  the  trail 
for  nowhere  in  particular.  But  horses 
must  eat,  and  oats  and  hay  often  are 
dear.  Moreover,  your  horse  must  be 

[65] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

used,  or  lose  condition;  so  if  you  are 
keeping  one  just  for  the  joy  of  an 
occasional  ride,  and  have  but  a  few 
weeks  or  months  in  the  calendar  year 
when  you  would  greatly  like  to  use  him, 
you  are  paying  rather  sumptuously  for 
the  privilege.  Hence  it  has  come  to 
pass,  out  here  at  Dumbiedykes,  that  I 
have  settled  down  to  the  proposition 
that,  all  things  considered,  there  is  no 
journey  in  all  this  world  that  really 
has  more  fascination  than  just  a  leisure 
hour  afoot,  along  an  unfrequented 
country  roadway.  And  I  am  perfectly 
content  to  go  alone.  In  fact,  so  few 
people  agree  with  me  in  this  special 
particular  that,  as  a  rule,  I  have  no 
choice  in  the  matter.  Occasionally 
I  go  as  early  as  6  o'clock  A.  M.  on  rare 
days  in  June. 

I  have  discovered  something  about 
this  hiking  business:  the  fellow  who 
designed  the  "last"  for  the  army  shoe 
knew  what  he  was  about.  You  might 
not  like  it  around  the  Blackstone,  but 
F661 


By- Ways  and  Butterflies 


going  down  the  road,  and  across  open 
country,  it  fits  in  with  the  scenery. 
One  thing  I  have  learned:  you  can't 
hike  happily  without  a  little  some- 
thing in  your  hand.  When  I  was  a 
young  savage  this  was  commonly  a 
gun,  with  which  I  could  shoot  wood- 
peckers and  other  useful  forms  of 
animal  life.  Today  I  prefer  a  good 
stout  stick;  not  those  fashionable 
things  they  sell  you,  or  your  friends 
give  you,  with  curved  or  bent  tops. 
I  have  a  collection  of  those;  some  of 
them  gifts  that  carry  with  them  mem- 
ories I  hope  to  bear  with  me  in  my 
latest  steps.  But  I  picked  up  some- 
where a  genuine  walking  stick  for  real 
road  service — a  stout,  straight  one,  an 
inch-and-a-half  thick  at  the  top;  not 
worked  down  smoothly,  but  left  more 
or  less  in  the  rough,  and  tapering  down 
in  unaltered  natural  proportion.  It  is 
of  solid  wood,  and  of  good  weight,  and 
it  is  easy  to  understand  why  it  feels 
right  in  my  hand  as  I  take  the  road 

[67] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

with  it,  as  compared  with  that  slender, 
silver-mounted  rosewood  cane  Potter 
Palmer  gave  me  in  Paris  twenty  years 
ago,  or  that  nice  bamboo  one  Senator 
Philander  C.  Knox  once  used.  These 
are  all  well  enough,  worn  with  a  silk 
hat,  a  long-tailed  coat  and  pointed 
footwear  upon  state  occasions,  but  they 
are  guaranteed  to  spoil  anybody's  walk 
down  any  wagon  track  that  winds  "over 
the  hills  and  far  away." 

I  don't  know  which  I  used  to  envy 
most,  gypsies  or  peddlers  that  tramped 
the  country  roads,  with  packs  slung 
from  a  stick  carried  over  the  shoulder. 
I  think  I  would  have  made  a  better 
peddler  than  a  horse-trader.  But,  re- 
verting to  that  stick,  when  I  get  it  in 
my  hand,  and  feel  the  soft  earth  of  a 
quiet  roadway  underneath  good  broad 
shoes,  I  am  the  aboriginal  man.  My 
club  is  my  defense  and  argument,  if 
necessary.  I  am  in  that  comfortable 
frame  of  mind  where  I  don't  care  for 
men,  beasts,  angels  or  devils.  I  face 
[68] 


By -Ways  and  Butterflies 


the  world  four-square,  and  fear  no 
evil — and,  what  is  more,  I  am  not 
conscious  of  evil  in  my  heart  or  mind. 
I  touch  creation  at  every  point.  There 
is  no  jar,  no  friction.  The  connection 
is  too  intimate;  too  closely  established. 
Do  you  hear  that  woodpecker  calling 
to  the  faithful  from  his  tower  in  yonder 
mosque?  He  has  his  red  fez  on  his 
head.  I  don't  know  whether  real, 
sure-enough  muezzins  wear  them  or 
not.  Turks  are  supposed  to;  so  that 
is  near  enough  for  purposes  of  com- 
parison. But  I  for  one  had  rather 
stand  here  amidst  all  this  greenery, 
with  the  grass  and  wild  flowers  glist- 
ening in  the  morning  dew,  and  hear 
that  red-head  sending  out  his  piercing 
note  from  the  top  of  that  dead  oak 
tree  top  than  to  be  this  minute  on  the 
dirty  pavements  in  front  of  St.  Sofia. 
No  streets  of  Stamboul  for  mine  when 
I  can  set  my  feet  in  this  soft  turf,  and 
breathe  such  air.  And  as  for  cathe- 
drals !  Come  with  me. 

[69] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

Near  that  little  bridge  the  road 
passes  underneath  a  groined  arch, 
formed  by  tall,  leaning  trees  meeting 
overhead,  that  cannot  be  duplicated 
in  any  cathedral  in  Europe.  Yet  I  will 
venture  to  say  that  not  one  in  a  thou- 
sand of  all  those  who  annually  speed 
through  this  natural  sanctuary  ever 
observe  this  pointed  Gothic  canopy. 
It  is  not  so  high  as  St.  Peter's,  nor  so 
wide  as  Notre  Dame.  There  is  no 
stained  glass,  for  there  is  no  need  of 
such  embellishment — just  green  leaves 
and  interlacing  branches  through  which 
you  get  glimpses  of  a  ceiling  sky-blue 
by  day,  and  black,  studded  with  twink- 
ling lights  at  night. 

Men  try  to  imitate  such  things,  using 
stone  and  paint  and  all  the  resources 
of  their  feeble  art,  and  if  they  succeed 
to  a  certain  degree,  as  at  Milan  or 
Canterbury,  people  flock  from  all  over 
the  world  to  see  what  at  best  can  be 
beaten  hollow  in  any  virgin  forest. 
The  fact  is  that  these  temples  exist  in 

[70] 


By -Ways  and  Butterflies 


every  grove  everywhere.  Some  of 
course  are  finer  than  others.  People 
who  live  near  a  trail  I  know  leading  up 
to  the  higher  ranges  of  the  Big  Horn 
mountains  can  walk  or  ride  very  day, 
if  they  like,  through  silent  cathedral 
aisles,  more  solemn  than  those  of  York, 
almost  infinite  in  extent,  softly  car- 
peted and  flooded  with  a  light  the 
feeling  of  which  no  artist  can  reproduce. 
Sermons  are  preached  here,  too; 
many  of  them  better  than  those  de- 
livered from  the  pulpits  of  St.  Paul's. 
Lessons  are  impressed  quite  as  graph- 
ically also  as  in  scholastic  halls.  The 
woodpecker  on  the  deadoak  tree  flew  just 
now  across  to  the  eaves  of  a  building  in 
the  edge  of  a  wood,  and  at  once  began 
to  "drum."  Now,  you  all  know  the 
sound  of  the  automatic  riveter  we  hear 
hammering  wherever  steel  is  being  put 
in  place  on  skyscrapers,  great  battle- 
ships or  bridges.  It  was  here  in  the 
woods  that  the  inventor  of  that  in- 
genious automatic  tool  got  his  original 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

conception.  The  action  is  identical. 
Men  learn  most  of  their  tricks  from 
these  folk.  But  for  the  birds  to  copy 
from,  there  would  have  been  no  right 
solution  of  the  flying-machine  question. 
No  plane  has  yet  come  from  the  hands 
of  human  engineers  that  can  be  for  a 
moment  compared  with  the  purple 
martin's  flight,  in  point  of  ease,  deli- 
cacy and  dependable  efficiency  in  actual 
operation.  Men  are  wise  only  as  they 
succeed  at  last  in  divining  a  part  of 
Nature's  secrets.  If  a  Turner  is  lucky 
enough  merely  to  reproduce  success- 
fully a  vision  of  "a  painted  ship  upon 
a  painted  ocean,"  we  talk  of  "genius" 
and  "creative  power." 

Strolling  down  this  same  road  the 
other  morning,  I  reached  the  point 
where  the  trail  bends  towards  a  little 
bridge,  and  was  involuntarily  halted 
by  something  peculiarly  striking  in  the 
note  of  a  favorite  bird — a  brown 
thrasher,  own  cousin  to  the  southern 
mocking-bird — singing  his  head  off  on 

[72] 


By-Ways  and  Butterflies 


the  topmost  branch  of  a  tall  tree, 
perhaps  100  yards  away.  I  do  not 
know  just  what  there  was  in  his  vocali- 
zation that  particular  morning  differ- 
ing from  his  customary  performance. 
There  have  been  more  of  these  artists 
about  this  spring  than  usual,  for  which 
we  are  duly  grateful,  and  their  marvel- 
ous repertory  had  for  some  time  past 
been  one  of  the  chief  joys  of  the  con- 
gregational singing  heard  each  time 
the  sun-glow  roused  this  little  corner 
of  the  world.  But  something  he  was 
saying  brought  me  to  a  sudden  halt. 
An  open  space  separated  us.  From 
his  lofty  perch  the  thrush  poured  into 
the  morning  sunshine  his  stirring  stac- 
cato potpourri.  Now,  as  a  rule,  the 
thrush  or  thrasher  (as  many  call  him) 
is  not  so  socially  inclined  towards  those 
of  us  who  have  no  feathers  as  his  well- 
groomed  imitator — the  closest  friend  I 
have  in  birdland — the  catbird;  so 
when  suddenly  he  left  his  high  point  of 
vantage,  and  flew  swiftly  towards  the 

[73] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

spot  where  I  was  standing,  alighting 
on  one  of  the  lower  branches  of  the 
tree  near  which  I  stood,  I  was  both 
surprised  and  gratified.  That  he  had  a 
message  for  me  I  did  not  doubt.  Who 
sent  him  with  it  is  a  mystery;  but 
whoever  it  was  I  thank  him  or  her  for 
it,  and  trust  that  I  interpreted  it  cor- 
rectly. I  am  equally  certain  that  it 
was  a  hint  intended  for  my  benefit; 
for  I  had  been  somewhat  out  of  spirits 
for  several  days  preceding. 

Unfortunately,  I  am  no  mocking- 
bird. Unfortunately,  like  some  other 
folk,  I  sometimes  allow  the  pursuit  of 
the  thousand-and-one  unnecessaries  de- 
manded by  modern  civilized  life,  or 
permit  the  various  petty  disappoint- 
ments of  this  human  pilgrimage,  to 
batter  up  my  nerves.  Bright  sun- 
shine, a  cool  day  and  a  blazing  log 
upon  the  hearth,  or  the  grasp  of  a 
friendly 'hand,  commonly  will  restore 
one's  cheer  for  a  time  at  least,  but 
clouds  come  back. 

[741 


By -Ways  and  Butterflies 


My  thrasher  eyed  me  steadily  for  a 
moment  at  short  range,  for  one  of  his 
breed,  then  dropped  lightly  down  upon 
the  roadside  not  twenty  feet  from  the 
spot  from  which  I  had  not  moved  since 
he  stopped  me  by  his  calling.  When 
studying  birds  you  must  keep  very 
still.  I  have  found  that  out.  Any 
quick  motion  arouses  instant  suspicion. 
Evidently  he  had  not  finished  feeding,  or, 
for  the  sake  of  giving  me  a  "pointer," 
he  pretended  he  had  not,  for  he  at  once 
began  industriously  seeking  the  seeds 
or  insects  that  appeal  to  mocking- 
birds, and,  strange  to  me  at  least, 
chirped  sharply  cheery  notes  between 
each  "bite"  as  he  hopped  and  fed 
along  the  turf;  singing,  in  other  words, 
as  he  worked.  He  traveled  thus  for 
perhaps  fifteen  or  twenty  feet,  eying 
me  closely  all  the  time,  and,  when  he 
seemed  satisfied  that  I  had  under- 
stood, disappeared  in  the  woods.  We 
are  all  expected  to  whistle  if  we  can 
as  we  go  our  way,  no  matter  what  our 

[751 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

trouble.  We  do  not  always  succeed 
in  this,  however;  at  least  I  don't. 
When  tense  nerves  call  for  relaxation 
you  may  get  more  help  from  a  quiet 
hour  along  the  hedge-rows,  from  an 
occasional  happy  bird  or  butterfly, 
than  you  will  find  in  boxes  of  veronal 
or  in  bottles  of  valerian.  Try  roadside 
rambling,  some  of  you  jaded  jailbirds. 
You  might  find  it  good  medicine. 

Speaking  of  butterflies,  they  seem 
fickle  folk;  possibly  dis-bodied  flirts, 
transformed  coquettes;  just  flitting 
from  flower  to  flower,  helping  them- 
selves according  to  their  liking,  and 
passing  on  to  the  next  field  or  garden. 
One  of  them  might  float  around  that 
way  a  second  time,  and  remember 
some  particular  blossom  that  had 
proved  specially  sweet  before,  but  I 
doubt  it.  I  saw  one  settle  down  so 
long  one  afternoon  upon  a  bright  red 
clover  bloom  that  she  seemed  disposed 
not  to  wander  further,  but  she  did; 
and  in  the  natural  course  of  events  the 

[76] 


By -Ways  and  Butterflies 


clover  presently  lost  all  its  brilliancy, 
and  soon  turned  golden  brown.  But- 
terflies of  course  had  then  no  further 
interest  in  it.  It  requires  no  particular 
flight  of  the  imagination,  after  once 
ascribing  universality  to  all  created 
life,  to  find  in  this  very  common  in- 
cident a  real  romance. 

A  Romance  of  the  Fields 

Through  a  meadow  that  waved  in  the  summer 

sun, 

Where  the  crimson  clovers  bloomed. 
A  butterfly  pink  and  gold  and  gay 
Came  airily  winging  her  care-free  way 
In  a  journey  just  begun. 

And  she  kissed  first  this 

And  she  then  kissed  that, 

As  she  paused  in  her  happy  flight, 

And  each  bloom  was  thrilled 

And  with  joy  was  filled 

At  the  light  caress  and  the  fairy  touch 

Of  a  butterfly  fair  and  bright. 

And  one  she  found  in  her  wayward  path 
That  proved  so  surpassing  sweet, 

[77] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

That  she  folded  her  wings  on  its  rosy  breast, 
As  if  loving  it  better  than  all  the  rest, 
And,  spreading  about  it  her  filmy  lace, 
She  clasped  it  close  in  a  fond  embrace, 
Draining  its  heart  to  its  deepest  depths 
Of  the  nectar  stored  through  the  sunny  hours 
In  that  billowy  garden  of  nodding  flowers; 
Then,  butterfly-fashion,  flitted  away. 

But  there  came  a  time  as  the  year  wore  on 

When  the  wandering  beauty  paused, 

A-weary  of  threading  the  gypsy  trail, 

And  recalled  her  joy  in  the  grassy  vale 

Where  the  rose-red  clover  bloomed. 

But  in  vain  she  sought  the  meadow  flower, 

Just  to  live  again  that  happy  hour. 

The  sunbeams  had  claimed  it  as  their  own, 

And  had  ripened  its  fruitage  again  to  be  sown 

That  some  other  bright  butterfly,  pink,  gold 

and  gay 
Might  find  a  rich  clover  bloom  some  other  day. 

"And  what  became  of  the  butterfly? 
Did  she  die  of  remorse?" 

"Certainly  not.  On  the  contrary, 
she  doubtless  lived  to  a  good  old  age, 
finding  plenty  of  other  things  she 
liked  to  feed  upon  throughout  the 
later  months;  and,  when  the  frosts 

[78] 


By-Ways  and  Butterflies 


of  autumn  finally  brought  her  down  to 
earth,  no  doubt  passed  on  smiling  at 
fate  to  the  very  last.  You  see,  her 
idea  of  life  is  that  we  were  all  placed 
here  to  make  the  most  of  our  oppor- 
tunities, and  absorb  all  we  fairly  can 
from  those  with  whom  we  come  in 
contact.  If  your  clover  had  wings  he, 
too,  would  probably  dance  his  merry 
way  through  all  the  meadows  and 
gardens  in  his  world." 

"But,"  someone  remarks,  "that  is 
just  it.  He  hasn't.  He  is  firmly  rooted 
to  a  spot  he  loves,  and  from  which  he 
draws  his  substance.  He  is  constant 
and  serious,  serves  a  useful  purpose, 
and  still  he  is  robbed  by  every  winged 
vamp  that  happens  to  discover  him." 

"Yes,  but  probably  the  clover  con- 
siders the  feeding  of  bees  and  butter- 
flies a  pleasure,  and  finds  his  highest 
happiness  in  a  free  giving  of  himself. 
That  is  one  thing  that  some  of  us 
might  learn  to  our  own  advantage. 
Anyhow,  he  nodded  and  smiled  at 

[79] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

Mistress  Butterfly  as  she  came  his 
way.  If  she  found  him  exceptionally 
sweet  and  tarried  long — as  butterflies 
measure  time — to  show  her  apprecia- 
tion, that  was  his  reward." 

"Well,  if  there  is  such  a  thing  as  re- 
incarnation," the  butterfly's  critic  adds, 
"and  she  could  choose  her  own  form 
for  her  next  existence,  I  hope  she  will 
return  as  a  meadow  lark,  and  build  her 
nest  close  by  the  roots  of  that  same 
clover  clump.  Even  the  frivolous, 
you  know,  have  consciences,  if  they  be 
but  touched."  There  are  so-called 
frivolous  ones  whose  frivolity  is  merely 
a  cloak  assumed,  who  are  true  as  steel, 
even  when  appearing  most  irrespon- 
sible. Such  are  the  devious  ways  in 
which  our  many-colored  natures  mani- 
fest themselves. 

Next  June  another  butterfly  will 
drink  as  deeply  from  another  clover 
cup.  Only  not  many  of  you  will  stop, 
as  I  did,  to  study  the  proposition. 
You  might  be  doing  something  else 
[8ol 


By -Ways  and  Butterflies 


seemingly  much  more  important  to 
yourself,  but  I  figure  that  anything 
that  is  of  real  consequence  to  any  living 
thing,  even  though  it  be  only  a  common 
red  clover  blossom,  must  somehow  be 
of  real  importance  to  the  universe 
itself. 

You  can  think  it  all  over  in  By-Way  Land, 
The  Good  and  the  Evil,  too. 
In  its  sunshine  and  silence  you  draw  so  near 
To  the  least  thing  that  lives  that,  if  you  give  ear 
To  the  message  it  bears,  you  are  certain  to  hear 
Of  the  kinship  of  all  in  the  garden  grand 
That  blooms  for  you  always  in  By-Way  Land. 


[81] 


VII 

Purple  Martins  and  the  Moon 

It's  easy  to  find,  this  By-Way  Land; 

It's  not  far  from  any  man's  door. 

It's  anywhere  off  the  iron  and  the  stone, 

Where  one  may  just  wander,  yet  not  be  alone, 

For  there's  life  in  the  earth,  in  the  stream,  in 

the  air; 
There  are  friends  by  the  score  who  will  talk 

with  you  there, 
And  they'll  tell  you  of  that  which  may  help 

you  get  through, 
For,  believe  me,  they're  wiser  than  ever  you 

knew — 
These  field-folk  of  By-Way  Land. 

AN  American  invented  the  noisy, 
clumsy  aeroplane.     An  English- 
man discovered  the  skylark.     An  hour 
with  the  purple  martins,  and  you  will 
understand  what  inspired  the  author 

[83] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

of  one  of  the  glories  of  our  literature. 
Anybody  could  have  written  the  beau- 
tiful ode.  Only  for  centuries  nobody 
did.  It  remained  for  just  one  person 
to  do  it.  Just  so  with  "The  Cham- 
bered Nautilus."  Simple  enough,  isn't 
it?  You  or  I  or  anybody  could  have 
worked  out  the  same  idea.  But  we 
didn't.  We  recognize  the  beauty  of  a 
lot  of  these  master  strokes,  and  marvel 
at  their  simplicity  and  their  obvious- 
ness. Of  course,  we  all  have  it  in  us; 
but  somehow  we  don't  seem  to  be  able 
to  get  it  out.  I  don't  know  the 
English  skylark.  I  suppose  his  flights 
and  his  songs  are  extended  far  beyond 
the  performances  of  our  more  plebeian 
martins,  swifts  and  swallows;  and 
I  suspect,  therefore,  that  it  is  just  as 
well  that  Shelley  did  the  job  of  im- 
mortalizing these  blithe  spirits  of  God's 
aerodrome. 

Purple  martins  have  at  least  one 
quality  not  possessed  by  larks:  they 
are  emphatically  gregarious,  and  this 

[84] 


Purple  Martins  and  the  Moon 

adds  largely  to  our  interest  in  their 
movements.  Dwelling  in  colonies, 
they  not  only  seem  to  get  on  well  with 
one  another  as  individuals,  but  act  in 
concert  in  all  matters  involving  the 
common  welfare.  Their  dominant 
characteristics  are  their  irrepressible 
gayety,  and  their  astounding  feats  in 
aviation.  They  did  not  exactly  fancy 
my  standing  some  twenty  yards  from 
the  high  post  that  supported  their 
colonial  home,  for  the  barracks  were 
filled  with  the  fruits  of  springtime 
honeymoons.  They  circled  and 
wheeled  and  balanced  and  turned  in 
almost  impossible  gyrations,  waiting 
for  some  overt  act  on  my  part  that 
might  either  reassure  or  add  to  their 
apparent  trepidation.  Although  a  stiff 
wind  was  blowing  over  the  field,  in 
which  I  had  placed  in  the  early  spring 
their  elevated  station,  they  were  able 
to  "stand  still,"  so  to  speak,  while  on 
the  wing,  as  they  narrowly  studied  my 
attitude.  This  ability  of  the  purple 

[85] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

martin  to  maintain  almost  perfect 
poise  in  the  face  of  strong  atmospheric 
pressure  is  worth  thinking  about.  You 
can  see  fish  doing  the  same  thing 
against  adverse  currents.  I  should 
say  that  this  is  a  useful  and  altogether 
admirable  power  at  certain  times,  but 
not  all  of  us  possess  it.  There  is  the 
pressure  constantly  felt  by  a  lot  of 
country  boys  and  girls,  for  instance, 
to  leave  the  farm,  and  allow  themselves 
to  be  carried  into  towns  and  cities. 
There  is  the  lure  of  the  office  desk,  the 
smart-clothes  shop  and  bright  lights, 
and  some  of  these  brave,  wholesome 
lads  and  lassies  will  return  some  day, 
worn  and  broken  on  the  wheels  that 
grind  forever  inside  the  walls  they  have 
entered  with  high  hopes. 

If  you  approach  too  near  a  well- 
filled  martin  house  you  will  soon  be 
warned  away.  The  parent  birds  will 
wheel  and  circle  closely  around  you, 
and  now  and  then  one  that  is  par- 
ticularly solicitous  will  try  to  make 
[861 


Purple  Martins  and  the  Moon 

you  think  she  is  about  to  pick  a  piece 
out  of  your  face  or  neck  or  ears.  I  am 
of  the  opinion  that  old  Mother  Goose 
had  one  of  these  birds  in  mind  when 
she  wrote  her  famous  ditty  about  the 
maid  who  was  in  the  garden  hanging 
out  the  clothes.  If  the  truth  were 
known,  I  would  wager  it  was  a  purple 
martin,  and  not  a  blackbird  that 
"snipped  off"  that  historic  laundry 
girl's  precious  little  beak! 

If  they  have  gyrated  round  about 
you  twelve  or  fifteen  times,  without 
getting  rid  of  you,  they  may  adopt 
another  plan,  the  counterpart  of  that 
used  by  their  lowlier  neighbors,  the 
meadow  larks,  as  already  mentioned; 
only  the  air,  instead  of  the  grass,  is 
their  home.  They  will  get  your  atten- 
tion away  from  that  house  at  any  cost. 
Surely  you  will  be  more  interested  in 
watching  them  perform  high  above 
your  head  than  near  the  ground,  and 
the  first  thing  you  know  a  "flying 
match"  will  be  put  on  for  your  especial 

[87] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

benefit.  If  you  have  any  regard  what- 
ever for  their  peace  of  mind  and 
general  welfare,  you  of  course  permit 
this  clever  expedient  to  work  as  the 
birds  intend.  They  will  play  for  hours 
when  left  to  themselves,  just  for  the 
pure,  unadultered  fun  they  evidently 
get  out  of  it;  but  in  the  case  just  men- 
tioned they  are  only  pretending  to 
enjoy  themselves.  They  are  really 
worried,  and  their  mental  distress  is 
not  altogether  relieved  until  you  have 
put  a  respectful  distance  between  your- 
self and  the  post;  whereupon  they 
quickly  descend  and  inspect  the  house, 
to  make  sure  that  no  hocus-pocus  trick 
of  yours  has  robbed  them  of  their 
young  while  the  feathered  fathers  and 
mothers  flew  so  gaily  for  your  enter- 
tainment. 

A  martin  in  full  flight  is  the  counter- 
part of  a  skilled  skater  on  good  ice. 
First  the  quick,  sharp,  vigorous  strokes 
that  work  up  the  necessary  speed; 
then  the  long,  smooth,  graceful  glide 
F881 


Purple  Martins  and  the  Moon 

along  either  straight  or  curving  lines, 
according  to  the  whim  or  objective  of 
the  flyer.  They  even  float  backward 
in  a  breeze,  without  a  movement  of 
their  wings.  Certain  other  birds  use 
the  same  general  system,  but  few 
practice  it  with  such  consummate  art. 
A  colony  of  martins  at  their  evening 
frolic  is  well  worth  watching.  You 
would  think  they  would  be  ready  to 
quit  the  air  as  the  shadows  fall  at  the 
end  of  long  mid-June  days,  without 
this  apparently  unnecessary  exertion, 
but  they  are  tireless.  Indeed,  they 
seem  to  enjoy  their  lofty  twilight 
revels  as  farm  boys  love  a  plunge  in 
the  water  at  the  end  of  a  hot  summer 
day  in  the  fields.  Are  we  not  all  re- 
lated ?  Who  can  study  it  all,  and  still 
deny  it? 

Interesting  as  it  is  to  watch  the 
three-ring  circus  performance  put  on 
by  these  fine  actors  each  evening,  if 
you  will  single  out  one  bird  and  try  to 
follow  his  flight,  you  will  now  and 

[89] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

then  observe  individual  acts  almost 
startling  in  their  daring.  On  the  even- 
ing of  June  26  the  sun  was  setting  in 
the  far  northwest,  at  the  end  of  a  day 
of  high  temperatures.  In  the  south- 
east the  grey  face  of  a  three-quarter 
moon,  preparing  to  throw  down  a 
flood  of  light,  was  already  visible. 
Martin-town  was  busy.  Some  of  the 
birds  were  on  the  wing,  and  others 
were  sitting  on  the  doorsteps  of  their 
colonial  apartment  house,  engaged  in 
animated  conversation;  some  of  the 
remarks  being  obviously  addressed  to 
one  another,  and  other  expressions, 
with  equal  certainty,  were  for  the 
benefit  of  the  fledglings  inside.  I  sat 
on  a  bench  beneath  a  little  clump  of 
trees  nearby,  trying  to  translate  some 
of  these  notes;  many  of  which  were 
beautifully  clear  and  flute-like.  In 
fact,  the  martin's  speaking  voice,  in 
such  intimate  contact  as  this  with  his 
(or  her)  own,  is  decidedly  better  than 
his  chatter  in  the  air. 
[90] 


Purple  Martins  and  the  Moon 

While  I  was  thus  engaged  "Billy" 
was  out  across  the  field,  putting  in  an 
idle  hour  with  her  latest  toy,  a  kite. 
A  light  southwesterly  breeze  was  blow- 
ing, and  she  had  out  some  three  hun- 
dred yards  of  line.  The  kite  was 
tugging  gracefully  at  its  mooring.  The 
martins  watched  its  movements,  and 
presently  a  few  of  them  were  wheeling 
upward  towards  it;  either  curious  to 
know  what  sort  of  big  new  bird  had 
come  to  compete  with  them,  or  bent 
upon  proving  their  own  superior  flying 
powers.  At  length,  having  either  sat- 
isfied themselves  that  the  kite  was  a 
harmless  creature,  or  that  they  had 
demonstrated  sufficiently  their  own 
prowess  in  comparison,  they  left 
"Billy"  and  her  kite  to  their  own 
devices,  and  reported  back  to  head- 
quarters. Meantime,  the  sun  was  dip- 
ping low  behind  the  distant  tree  tops, 
and  the  profile  of  the  Madonna  of  the 
Moon  was  becoming  more  and  more 
distinct,  when  suddenly  a  martin 

[91] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

hopped  off  his  perch  and  headed  south. 
He  was  alone.  At  first  he  did  nothing 
differing  particularly  from  what  his 
fellows  were  wont  to  do,  but  soon  he 
began  climbing  to  great  heights.  For 
the  most  part  he  rose,  like  Shelley's 
lark,  "higher  still  and  higher"  along 
easy  grades,  but  now  and  then  made 
short  and  almost  perpendicular  ascents, 
followed  by  long  curving  flights  to  still 
greater  altitudes.  He  was  surely 
headed  for  the  moon!  That  was  his 
evident  objective.  I  followed  him  as 
far  as  a  human  eye  of  good  long- 
distance power  could  follow.  The  air 
was  clear,  and  now  and  then  I  could 
make  out  again  the  tiny  speck,  still 
soaring  towards  the  now  fast-whitening 
orb.  At  last  he  disappeared  entirely. 
Let  us  hope  he  was  favored  by  fortune 
in  his  great  adventure,  and  found  in 
the  infinite  spaces,  so  daringly  in- 
vaded, that  which  he  had  sought. 

Are  sky-birds  the  only  folk  who  leave 
their  nests  and  wander  far  and  long 

[92] 


Purple  Martins  and  the  Moon 

in  quest  of  worlds  that  really  shine  by 
reflected  light,  and  which,  if  reached, 
prove  but  cold,  dead,  dreary,  barren 
wastes?  I  could  tell  you  of  certain 
human  hopes  and  aspirations  that 
seemed  to  be  leading  up  to  a  fancied 
Paradise,  which  faded  away  as  com- 
pletely as  my  martin  vanished  in  the 
vapors  of  the  upper  air  at  the  close  of 
this  perfect  day  in  June!  That  he 
failed  to  reach  that  icy  wilderness  we 
call  the  moon  is  physically  certain. 
That  he  returned  to  Mother  Earth 
again  is  equally  sure.  Thus  toil  we 
all  towards  some  distant  light  that 
lures  us  on,  only  to  turn  back  at  last 
on  wearied  wing. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  you  don't  have 
to  race  up  and  down  the  earth  and 
air  and  sea  to  learn  what  little  there  is 
to  be  known  about  creation.  The 
whole  world  is  in  your  immediate 
neighborhood.  The  same  sun  shines 
over  your  woodlot  that  lights  Mont 
Blanc.  The  flood-water  that  rushed 

[93] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

down  that  open  ditch  last  week  after 
the  big  rain,  whirling  and  eddying 
and  plunging  over  and  around  obstruc- 
tions, ever  seeking  lower  levels,  was  the 
same  thing  that  you  go  to  see  in  the 
Yosemite  Valley.  The  falls  there  are 
higher;  that's  all.  As  for  the  giant 
redwood  trees,  if  you  will  come  with 
me  down  the  roadside  here  I  will  show 
you  a  luxuriant  big  bull-thistle  two 
inches  thick  at  its  base,  and  seven  feet 
high,  that  towers  in  majesty  above  the 
dimunitive  weeds  growing  about  its 
base,  just  as  imperiously  as  the 
Sequoia  Gigantea  lords  it  over  ordinary 
forest  growths.  It's  all  a  matter  of 
comparison. 

Instead  of  wasting  time  talking  about 
establishing  communication  with  the 
planet  Mars,  it  would  prove  much 
more  profitable  to  try  to  become  really 
acquainted  with  our  own  earthly  neigh- 
bors; not  only  those  of  high  but  of 
low  degree  as  well,  including  the  so- 
called  Blower"  animals  and  plants. 

[94] 


Purple  Martins  and  the  Moon 

The  truth  is  that  all,  from  minnows  to 
Members  of  Parliament,  are  but  "parts 
of  one  stupendous  whole." 

Life  at  best  is  but  an  incident  in  the 
history  of  worlds.  All  these  whirling 
spheres  apparently  had  their  Genesis 
in  gas  and  fire,  and  their  Revelation  in 
ice  and  desolation;  and,  while  the 
various  inhabitants  of  the  earth  and 
air  and  water — from  angle  worms  and 
ants,  to  men  and  sharks  and  eagles — 
are  devouring  one  another  in  an  end- 
less chain  of  killing  and  digesting,  all 
alike  are  marked  and  headed  for  the 
same  ultimate  physical  extinction.  The 
moon  has  arrived  at  its  supposedly 
semi-final  stage.  The  "fitful  fever" 
that  rages  all  around  ourselves  has  long 
since  disappeared  from  lunar  depths 
and  plains  and  mountain  heights.  If 
moon-folk  ever  lived  by  slaughtering 
one  another  as  we  do,  that  monstrous, 
cruel  stage  of  existence  has,  for  them, 
happily  ended.  When  we  reach  the 
original  inorganic  elements  we  too, 

[95] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

may  be  at  peace.  Ashes  and  humus 
do  not  have  to  hustle  around  seeking 
pleasure  for  themselves,  at  the  expense 
of  the  pain  and  destruction  of  some- 
body else.  They  just  exist;  that's  all. 
They  probably  care  not  whether  they 
continue  to  exist  even  as-  ash  or  dis- 
integrated vegetation. 

If  freedom  from  the  struggle  for  the 
attainment  of  things,  for  the  most 
part  unattainable,  defines  the  real 
objective — the  state  typified  by  the  so- 
called  finished  worlds — then  it  is  clear 
that  universal  extinction  of  life  repre- 
sents progress;  hence,  instead  of  be- 
wailing the  free  use  of  the  knife  and 
gun  and  gaff  upon  one  another,  instead 
of  forming  Leagues  of  Nations  to  re- 
strain the  homicidal  tendencies  of  men, 
I  suppose  we  had  about  as  well  be  en- 
gaged in  twirling  our  thumbs.  Medi- 
cines and  hospitals  represent  only 
dubious  means  of  temporarily  delaying 
nature's  inexorable  plans.  You  spray 
your  trees  to  save  them  from  the 

[96] 


Purple  Martins  and  the  Moon 

scale,  but  you  are  saving  or  trying  to 
save  only  in  order  that  you  or  some 
of  your  descendants  may  later  on  have 
the  pleasure  of  destroying  the  expected 
fruit. 

The  moon  that  tempted  the  purple 
martin  in  his  twilight  flight,  and  other 
celestial  bodies  that  have  reached  the 
cold  storage  stage,  are,  however,  not 
finished  worlds  at  all.  Not  yet.  They 
have  still  another  experience  through 
which  to  pass;  cracking  open  and 
falling  apart,  or  being  knocked  into 
bits  by  collision — through  someone's 
speeding  or  bad  driving  through  space 
—  and  hurled  or  hurried  pell-mell 
through  black  voids  at  incredible  speed, 
reduced  to  gas  by  friction  or  drawn 
into  some  sun  having  sufficient  pulling 
power  to  collect  the  flying  fragments! 
Back,  in  other  words,  to  the  original 
gaseous  state,  the  cycle  at  last  com- 
plete. We  apparently  travel,  there- 
fore, as  men  and  mice  and  moons  and 
martins,  not  from  a  lower  to  a  higher 

[97] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

level  at  all;  but  in  a  circle  that  has 
neither  height  nor  depth,  beginning 
nor  ending;  and  the  life  stage  is  but  an 
incident  in  the  cosmic  journey  from 
vapor  back  to  vapor. 


[98 


VIII 

A  "Board  Walk"  of  the  Woods 

A  TLANTIC  City's  celebrated  sea- 
1\.  side  promenade  has  nothing  on 
a  walk  I  know  skirting  the  edge  of  a 
wood.  It  may  not  be  as  famous  among 
milliners,  dressmakers  and  rolling-chair 
operators,  because,  for  one  reason,  the 
crowds  that  frequent  it  wear  neither 
gowns  nor  bonnets;  neither  do  they 
require  any  artificial  means  of  loco- 
motion. They  parade  in  the  clothes 
their  mothers  gave  them,  and  use  their 
own  legs  and  feet,  of  which  they  have 
plenty.  And  they  are  a  busy  lot. 

The  walk  of  which  I  speak  winds  its 
way  through  tall  grass  and  weeds, 
wild  grape  vines,  woodbine,  oaks  and 
sumacs,  and  presents  frequently  a  very 
animated  scene.  It  is,  in  fact,  in  high 

[99l 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

favor  with  the  crawling,  creeping  deni- 
zens of  the  underworld  through  which 
it  passes.  It  was  a  real  board  walk 
in  the  early  days,  but  the  dampness 
of  the  ground  beneath  and  round 
about  soon  rotted  the  sills,  and  it  was 
long  ago  replaced  with  concrete.  To 
that  extent  it  is  more  up-to-date  than 
its  Jersey  contemporary.  It  is  used 
by  those  who  apparently  consider 
that  it  was  built  for  their  especial 
benefit,  for  the  same  purpose  as  At- 
lantic City's  gay  wide  way.  Ants  of 
all  shapes  and  various  breeds — big  and 
little,  black,  brown  and  red  and  small 
spiders — make  up  perhaps  the  major- 
ity of  those  who  use  it  during  the 
heated  term.  It  is  not  popular  with 
these  people,  however,  from  Novem- 
ber to  May. 

It  seems  perfectly  apparent  that 
most  of  them  are  simply  out  for  the  air; 
out  to  see  and  be  seen;  out  to  dis- 
play their  various  graces  of  gait  or 
figure;  out  to  visit  and  gossip — all 
[100] 


A  "Board  Walk"  of  the  Woods 

very  busy,  in  short,  doing  nothing  but 
enjoying  themselves.  To  this  latter 
statement  there  must  be  made  one  ex- 
ception, for  every  now  and  then  you 
can  see  some  able-bodied  creature, 
corresponding  one  might  say  to  a 
porter  at  the  Traymore,  wrestling  with 
a  huge  piece  of  baggage;  only  he  has 
more  speed  than  the  average  "smasher" 
manipulating  a  wardrobe  trunk.  First 
he  shoves  it  along  in  front,  then  sud- 
denly whirls  about  and  drags  it,  appar- 
ently without  any  care  as  to  whether 
he  damages  anything  or  not.  Or, 
maybe  he  drags  it  first,  and  pushes  it 
afterwards,  for  I  don't  know  which  is 
fore  and  which  is  aft  in  antian  anat- 
omy. He  may  have  his  forelegs  about 
it  or  his  hind  ones.  I  do  not  know  as 
to  that.  Anyway,  he  makes  good 
progress  with  it  until  he  strikes  one 
of  the  little  crevices  that  separate  the 
surfaces  of  the  sections  of  concrete 
walks,  when  down  he  goes  baggage  and 
all,  end  over  end,  into  what  must 
[101] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

seem  to  him  a  Grand  Canyon  of  the 
Colorado.  He  is  game,  however.  He 
proposes  to  deliver  that  baggage  if  it 
costs  ten  legs,  and  presently  he  scram- 
bles up  onto  the  good  going  again,  and 
repeats  the  pulling  and  hauling  per- 
formance observed  before  his  discon- 
certing accident. 

Ants  must  be  blind,  for  this  one  ap- 
parently does  not  see  that  he  is  headed 
or  is  backing  into  several  bits  of  dead 
grass  lying  on  the  walk  directly  in  his 
path.  Pitching  over  and  over  him- 
self, but  never  for  an  instant  losing 
his  grip  upon  his  brown  burden,  what- 
ever it  is,  he  wriggles  and  climbs  and 
stumbles  and  blunders  over  and 
through  this  Redwood  and  barbed 
wire  entanglement,  and  presently  falls, 
baggage  and  all,  oif  into  the  grassy 
forest  depths  alongside  the  edge  of  the 
walk. 

It  does  not  occur  to  the  ant  that  by 
a  little  bit  of  a  detour  he  could  avoid 
this  formidable  barricade  of  dead  grass 
[102] 


A  "Board  Walk"  of  the  Woods 

in  his  pathway  on  the  walk.  He  is 
like  the  men  who  laid  out  our  western 
highways  along  rigid  section  lines.  Go 
straight  through,  no  matter  what  hills 
and  rocks  and  swamps  and  forests  lie 
in  the  line  of  the  surveyor's  instru- 
ments! Never  mind  the  lines  of  easy 
grade  and  shortest  distance!  Be  an 
ant,  and  blast  and  flounder  and  cut 
your  way  through  granite  rock,  through 
bottomless  pits,  through  virgin  forests, 
no  matter  at  what  cost  to  yourself! 

I  do  not  try  to  follow  these  Forest 
City  ants  into  the  underbrush.  It 
would  be  too  distressing  to  contem- 
plate the  nervous  energy  they  would 
have  to  dissipate  piloting  something 
twice  as  big  as  themselves  through  the 
weeds  and  sumac  bushes,  into  which 
they  ultimately  make  their  way;  so 
I  leave  them  to  their  tasks,  glad  only 
that  I  usually  see  the  busy,  burly 
athletes  in  time  to  avoid  stepping  on 
them  and  thus  bring  probably  useful 
careers  to  an  untimely  end. 

[103] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

I  brought  an  ant  into  the  house 
the  other  day  with  a  plant  I  had  been 
studying,  and,  as  I  was  dissecting  a 
seedhead,  he  crawled  out  upon  the 
table  and  had  a  lot  of  fun  with  him- 
self. He  of  course  did  not  like  cramped 
quarters,  and  tried  to  get  away,  but 
after  I  had  brushed  him  back  three  or 
four  times  he  stood  up  perfectly  erect, 
looked  around  and  mopped  himself 
with  his  "feelers,"  apparently  engaged 
in  a  real  brown  study  as  to  where  he 
would  try  to  go  next.  He  pushed  and 
pulled  some  of  my  debris  round  and 
round,  navigating  himself  with  the  two 
main  propellers  in  the  middle  of  his 
body.  These  he  worked  with  amazing 
rapidity.  I  put  him  through  a  lot  of 
stunts,  using  my  lead  pencil,  which  he 
heartily  detested,  as  a  directing  force; 
after  which  he  gave  himself  a  good 
massage.  He  made  his  escape  while 
I  was  fussing  with  some  thistle-down, 
and  I  hope  found  his  way  back  to  the 
woods  in  safety. 

[104] 


A  "Board  Walk"  of  the  Woods 

In  recent  days  there  have  been  a  lot 
of  small  spiders  sprinting  up  and  down 
or  scampering  across  the  walk.  Now 
an  ant  will  run  all  over  the  place — 
unless  wrestling  with  a  load  of  coal  or 
something — without  any  apparent  idea 
as  to  where  he  is  going.  I  don't  really 
think  he  has  or  cares.  He  will  go  in 
circles  or  forward  and  backward  with- 
out any  sense  of  direction,  without  any 
given  point  in  view,  so  far  as  I  can  see. 
But  these  little  spider-bodies  act  as  if 
they  knew  where  they  were  going,  and 
intended  getting  there.  They  seem 
to  sense  or  recognize  your  presence 
when  you  happen  to  stop  near  them. 
Still  they  are  somewhat  erratic  in  their 
attitude  toward  you.  I  tried  stepping 
closer  and  closer  to  one  of  them  when 
he  stopped  to  rest  on  some  long  journey 
he  was  making,  and  each  time,  for  a 
while,  he  would  start  to  run,  then 
"stop,  look  and  listen"  to  see  what  the 
next  move  was  to  be;  finally  settling 
down  to  the  conviction  that  I  was 

[105] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

either  afraid  of  him  or  meant  no 
harm.  I  then  stamped  hard  very  near 
to  his  tiny  body,  and,  whereas  this 
had  at  first  set  him  off  in  a  panic, 
he  now  refused  to  budge  an  inch  fur- 
ther. Of  course,  there  was  nothing  for 
me  to  do  then  but  move  on,  allowing 
him  to  gloat  over  the  success  of  his 
intrepid  stand  in  defense  of  his  own 
rights. 

At  night  in  mid-summer  toads  are 
apt  to  come  in  out  of  the  woods,  and 
take  this  concrete  walk  for  their  even- 
ing strolls.  I  don't  ever  want  to  be  a 
toad.  They  may  have  their  uses. 
Shakespeare  intimates  as  much;  but 
neither  their  shape  nor  their  gait,  as 
they  squat  or  flop  clumsily  along  the 
walk,  appeal  to  me.  It  is  not  a  de- 
light to  step  on  one.  They  are  about 
as  vivacious  as  a  lump  of  mud,  and  I 
confess  that  I  prefer  the  snake  that 
coiled  in  the  grass  alongside  the  walk, 
and,  with  open  mouth,  defied  me  to 
strike.  He  was  of  a  harmless  species, 
[106! 


A  "Board  Walk"  of  the  Woods 

and  I  admired  not  only  his  courage  but 
his  grace  and  sinuous  beauty. 

There  is  an  almost  infinite  variety  of 
life  to  be  seen  along  this  same  wood- 
land walk,  and  I  prefer  it  any  day  or 
night  to  that  wider  one  by  the  sea, 
so  dear  to  most  of  you.  There  are 
conventions  held  here  that  I  had 
rather  attend  than  any  that  ever  as- 
semble there.  No  long-winded  ad- 
dresses of  welcome  are  delivered;  no 
tiresome  technical  stuff  is  inflicted. 
All  is  informal;  quite  the  reverse  of 
the  conventional.  The  crows  or  blue 
jays  may  be  holding  noisy  conferences 
in  the  branches  overhead,  but  this 
does  not  interfere  in  the  least. 

By  the  way,  a  young  jay  just  out  of 
the  nest  is  one  of  the  funniest  and 
fuzziest  of  all  bird-land  "babies."  Just 
a  fearless  bunch  of  fluffy  blue-gray  silk, 
he  will  sit  on  a  lower  branch  near  the 
walk  as  you  go  by,  and  regard  you 
with  an  air  of  expectant  innocence 
that  makes  you  wish  you  had  some- 
[107]  ' 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

thing  to  offer  him.  Fledglings  have 
but  one  thought  in  life — food;  and 
then  immediately  more  food;  and  they 
never  dream  but  what  the  whole  uni- 
verse, so  far  as  they  have  any  con- 
ception of  it  by  what  they  see  around 
them,  was  created  for  their  sole  benefit 
and  owes  them  from  the  beginning  a 
good  living.  Men,  of  course,  have 
exactly  the  same  idea,  and  do  not 
hesitate  to  act  upon  that  theory  in 
dealing  with  all  created  forms  of  both 
animal  and  vegetable  existence. 

The  more  you  see  of  nature  in  general 
the  more  you  will  be  impressed  by  the 
essential  truth  of  the  old  saying  about 
self-preservation.  Every  created  form 
of  life — both  animal  and  vegetable — 
has  its  own  struggle  for  existence.  All 
alike  seek  to  thrive  and  fatten  at  the 
expense  of  someone  or  something  else. 

"Big  fleas  have  little  fleas 

Upon  their  backs  to  bite  Jem; 
And  these  fleas  have  lesser  fleas, 
And  so  on  ad  infinitum." 


A  "Board  Walk"  of  the  Woods 

That  sweet,  omnivorous,  good-look- 
ing girl  you  admire  so  much  is  com- 
posed for  the  most  part  of  cow,  wheat, 
pig,  potato  and  chicken,  with  a  few 
fish  and  onions  thrown  in  for  good 
measure.  The  cow  is  grass,  the  pig 
is  corn,  slops  and  clover,  with  an  occa- 
sional spring  chicken  or  lump  of  coal 
by  way  of  relish.  The  girl  has  the 
power  to  develop  beauty  out  of  these 
substances,  just  as  the  rose  elaborates 
fragrance  and  color  from  black  dirt, 
fortified  by  common  barnyard  manure 
— if  you  don't  put  it  too  near  the  roots. 
Wonderful  machines,  are  we  not?  All 
building,  and  then  decaying,  along 
parallel  lines;  with  the  same  old  sub- 
stances worked  over  a  million  different 
times  into  a  million  different  girls  and 
roses,  world  without  end;  the  "food 
cycle"  eternally  traversed. 

Resuming  our  walk,  you  all  know 

that  the  unhurt  child  fears  no  injury. 

Never  having  been  stepped  on  as  yet, 

your  ant  or  spider  is  not  on  the  look- 

[109] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

out  for  the  heavy  hoofs  of  those  who 
claim  ownership  of  the  walk.  If  they 
had  been,  they  would  scarcely  have 
survived  to  warn  their  sisters,  cousins 
and  uncles.  So  the  whole  unsuspecting 
crowd  runs  round  and  round,  and  back 
and  forth,  over  the  smooth,  hard  sur- 
face— evidently  placed  there  for  their 
comfort,  pleasure  and  convenience — 
all  unconscious  of  threatened  danger. 
Flies,  grasshoppers  and  crickets  on 
the  walk  will  take  to  cover  as  you  ap- 
proach, but  I  find  myself  always 
minding  my  step  as  I  go  over  the  walk 
with  Brobdingnagian  boots.  I  don't 
know  why  anyone  should  needlessly 
set  foot  upon  an  ant — especially  one 
with  a  bale  of  hay  in  hand;  so  I  often 
have  to  shorten  or  lengthen  my  stride 
to  avoid  cutting  short  some  career  quite 
as  important  to  that  community  doubt- 
less as  I  can  possibly  be  to  my  own. 

There  are  other  interesting  wood- 
folk  to  be  seen  as  you  stroll  along  this 
walk,  and  I  have  passed  various  idle 

[no] 


A  "Board  Walk"  of  the  Woods 

moments  in  their  midst.  For  instance, 
I  never  saw  a  lot  of  children  having 
any  more  fun  than  did  a  thousand 
newly-fledged  moths  yesterday  morn- 
ing. I  don't  know  what  they  were. 
I  don't  care  particularly  as  to  that. 
They  had  mouse-colored  wings,  orna- 
mented with  dark  spots.  They  would 
measure  perhaps  a  trifle  over  an  inch 
from  tip  to  tip  as  they  fluttered  about 
in  the  tall  grass  and  wild-flowers  be- 
neath the  oaks.  They  apparently 
avoided  the  open  sun,  and  the  more 
adventurous  among  them  made  occa- 
sional explorations  away  up  among  the 
leaves  of  the  trees  overhead.  Great 
journeys,  those,  I  imagine  for  such 
frail,  tiny  people!  For  one  of  these  to 
rise  from  the  grass-roots  nearly  to  the 
top  of  a  good  white  oak  was  some 
record  altitude,  I  should  say,  in  that 
particular  world.  They  did  not  stop 
to  feed  or  rest  so  long  as  I  remained 
with  them;  just  danced  and  frolicked, 
fancy  free,  their  little  hour,  as  plain  a 

[in] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

picture  of  innocent,  unshadowed  hap- 
piness as  earth  affords.  That  night  a 
roaring,  blinding  wind-and-rain  storm 
tossed  and  tore  and  soaked  the  grove 
and  its  underbrush  into  a  sodden 
jungle,  and  today  I  could  find  no  trace 
of  the  joyous  crowd  of  yesterday. 

You  can  see  just  as  much  of  interest 
on  this  walk  through  the  woods  on  the 
way  to  Dumbiedykes  as  around  the 
Marlborough-Blenheim,  if  you  only 
have  eyes  to  see,  and  understanding. 
If  you  don't  believe  it,  try  it. 


[112] 


IX 

Why  Is  A  Weed? 

THIS  has  been  a  week  of  intense 
heat  and  humidity  —  such  as 
hatched  Warren  G.  Harding  out  of  the 
National  Republican  Convention  in 
June  a  year  ago.  Don't  "shy",  dear 
reader,  at  this  reference.  Although  I 
attended  some  of  the  sessions  of  that 
convention,  and  am  always  interested 
in  major  politics,  still  I  am  not  half 
as  much  concerned  about  the  govern- 
ing business  these  days  as  I  am  in 
haying  and  "hiking."  My  first  vote 
for  a  President  was  cast  for  one  great 
Ohioan,  James  A.  Garfield,  who  came 
up  a  poor  boy  from  the  farm,  and,  like 
Lincoln  and  McKinley,  was  shot  as 
his  reward.  I  wonder  if  the  young- 
sters who  are  so  eager  for  the  blare  of 

[113] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

the  trumpets  of  publicity,  or  high 
finance,  realize  that  without  exception 
these  same  self-made,  so-called  suc- 
cessful men  all  sooner  or  later  find 
their  way  somehow,  dead  or  alive, 
back  to  the  good  old  earth;  mean- 
time having  asked  themselves  a  mil- 
lion times  why  they  ever  undertook 
the  journey,  why  they  ever  assumed 
the  almost  intolerable  burdens  they 
were  forced  to  carry  as  they  toiled  up 
the  stony  paths  that  have  to  be 
traversed  on  the  way  to  every  moun- 
tain peak!  They  reach  the  summits 
only  to  find  them  frozen,  to  find  no 
real  companionship;  and  far  down 
beneath  them  lie  the  green  and  smiling 
valleys  and  the  meadow  larks.  For- 
tunately not  all  our  boys  of  greatest 
natural  capacity  take  this  long  trail 
so  barren  of  real  rewards.  Many  of 
those  who  would  have  made  great 
politicians  or  financiers  have  had  sense 
enough  to  resist  the  lure  of  the  lime- 
light, and  their  names  are  written 

[114] 


Why  is  a  Weed} 


deeply  in  rich  soils  and  bountiful  har- 
vests, in  the  hearts  and  homes  of  their 
fellow-men. 

Let  us  walk  where  something  really 
wonderful  may  be  seen  and  studied — 
such  as  ragweeds,  and  their  poor 
relations.  You  meet  more  weeds  than 
anything  else  along  a  road  I  often 
travel.  Farmers  have  to  fight  them 
persistently  in  their  cultivated  fields, 
as  well  as  in  the  pastures.  They  are 
aggressive,  determined  things,  and 
eternal  vigilance  is  required  to  keep 
them  from  taking  universal  possession. 
Driven  out  by  the  arts  of  tillage,  they 
resort  to  fence  corners  and  roadsides 
where  they  flourish  amazingly,  defying 
dust,  drouth,  gravel,  bogs  and  man's 
sporadic  efforts  at  curtailing  their 
activities.  And  so  we  naturally  ask 
"What  is  a  weed?"  and  "Why  is  a 
weed?" 

I  have  heard  men  define  a  weed  as 
"a  plant  out  of  place."  Here  you  see 
once  more  illustrated  our  affectation 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

of  superior  wisdom  over  Whoever  or 
Whatever  placed  us  all  here.  I  should 
say  that  such  a  definition  is  at  best  a 
mere  confession  of  ignorance.  Nothing 
can  be  really  "out  of  place"  that 
Nature  put  in  a  given  position.  The 
plants  called  weeds,  left  to  themselves, 
are  as  a  matter  of  course  in  their 
proper,  natural  places.  The  trouble 
in  their  case  is  that  man  has  not  yet 
been  able  to  figure  out  for  his  own 
benefit  a  practical  use  for  them.  In 
pursuing  his  own  selfish  ends,  any- 
thing and  everything  that  stands  in 
the  way,  as  he  sees  the  way,  is  a 
miserable,  useless  object  having  no 
license  to  exist. 

Weeds  are  those  plants  that  thrive 
best  in  given  environments,  without 
artificial  seeding,  cultivation  or  other 
human  intervention.  We  spend  all 
kinds  of  money  trying  to  save  curious 
Burbankian  inventions  and  eradicating 
burdocks.  The  latter  are  much  har- 
dier, only  we  don't  know  yet  how  to 


Why  is  a  Weed? 


adapt  them  to  our  own  personal  uses. 
But  a  few  years  back  we  felt  just  as 
much  contempt  for  the  burdock's  lusty 
roadside  brother  Melilotus — the  sweet 
clover  of  every  farm-boy's  memory. 
Today  it  is  sown  and  called  a  hay  crop, 
besides  being  an  alfalfa  indicator.  The 
haymakers  who  worked  that  out  are 
about  as  illustrious  citizens,  I  should 
say,  as  the  lawmakers  who  go  to 
Congress  and  draw  the  big  black 
letters  on  the  first  page. 

So  we  make  war  on  weeds.  We 
make  war  on  weeds  for  the  same  reason 
that  we  made  war  on  the  Indian  and 
the  buffalo.  In  both  these  latter  cases 
they  stood  in  our  way.  That  was 
their  chief  offense.  We  wanted  what 
they  were  enjoying  for  ourselves,  and 
by  reason  of  our  superior  cunning  we 
got  it.  Then,  in  the  case  of  the  bison, 
there  was  besides  the  "sport"  of  killing. 
Fun  to  see  the  big  bull  go  down  under 
a  rain  of  rifle  balls,  wasn't  it?  Sport? 
Yes,  I  suppose  that  is  what  you  would 

[H7l 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

call  it.  He  stood  some  chance  against 
the  red  man's  bow  and  arrow,  but  he 
had  about  as  much  of  a  run  for  his  ex- 
istence when  civilized  men — mounted 
on  fleet  horses,  brought  originally  from 
Europe — arrived  with  repeating  Win- 
chesters, and  went  after  him,  as  a  snow- 
man would  have  in  an  open-hearth 
steel  furnace  at  Midvale.  Somebody 
stood  in  Hohenzollern's  way  also  not 
long  ago.  Belgium  was  the  little  weed 
that  had  first  to  be  eradicated  before 
the  larger  growth  called  France  could 
be  reached.  Both,  from  the  Boche 
standpoint,  were  peoples  "out  of 
place."  Down  with  them! 

Dandelions  are  weeds  because,  for 
one  thing,  there  are  too  many  of  them. 
If  they  were  rare,  and  difficult  to  pro- 
pagate, they  would  have  a  page  in 
every  seedsman's  catalogue,  and  be 
grown  in  the  most  aristocratic  gar- 
dens. The  worst  enemy  I  have  to 
contend  with  in  trying  to  get  a  lawn 
underneath  the  trees  at  Dumbiedykes 
[118] 


Why  is  a  Weedt 


is  a  creeping  "weed"  that  bears  a  tiny 
purple  flower,  just  as  perfect  of  its 
type  as  the  lobelia  I  bought  from  a 
greenhouse  for  a  border  to  our  geran- 
iums. Still  I  conform  to  the  "con- 
ventions," paying  good  wages  for  the 
destruction  of  the  one,  and  cash  to  the 
florist  for  the  other.  Such  slaves  are 
we  all  to  inherited  habits  and  accepted 
usages.  None  is  strong  enough  to  defy 
the  established  procedure !  Who  does  is 
written  down  as  undesirable,  unspar- 
ingly ridiculed  or  ruthlessly  repressed. 
I  shall  probably  be  labeled  a  "weed" 
myself,  or  something  worse,  for  having 
the  temerity  to  express  such  senti- 
ments. Any  man  is  "out  of  place" 
who  does  not  follow  the  crowd.  I 
realize  that,  but  I  also  resent  it.  When 
I  walk  down  the  road,  with  my  stout 
old  stick,  visiting  with  the  things  I 
hear  and  see  in  every  marsh  or  bush, 
those  who  whirl  by  in  a  cloud  of  dust 
stare  as  if  they  had  come  upon  an 
escaped  inmate  of  some  institution. 

[119] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

They  have;  only  they  don't  know  just 
which  one.  The  walls  from  which 
escape  has  been  made  are  the  walls  of 
conventionality;  the  walls  of  the  big- 
gest "bughouse"  on  the  planet.  The 
world  will  stand  for  your  playing  the 
part  of  a  strolling  vagabond  for  a  time, 
but  if  you  get  confirmed  in  the  habit 
you  will  soon  be  outlawed.  So  take 
my  advice,  and  follow  the  crowd  as 
long  as  you  can  stand  it;  but  don't 
forget  to  sidestep  the  merciless  pro- 
cession now  and  then,  when  you  can 
find  or  make  an  opportunity,  and  get 
far  enough  away  from  it  once  in  a 
while  to  note  its  follies,  and  observe 
its  destination. 

The  moment  man  discovers  some 
way  of  making  a  weed  serve  any  of  his 
own  purposes  it  of  course  ceases  to  be 
a  weed.  Not  that  any  change  has 
taken  place  in  the  plant  itself,  but  the 
mere  fact  that  it  now  brings  man  corn 
or  fodder  or  sleep  or  stimulation,  as 
the  case  may  be,  promotes  it  from  the 
[120! 


Why  is  a  Weedl 


ranks  of  the  despised  to  the  category 
of  the  useful  and  desirable.  Merely 
perfunctory  human  friendships  rest 
practically  upon  the  same  selfish  basis. 
A  person  who  gives  us  nothing  is  a 
person  who  has  no  claims  whatever 
upon  our  consideration.  Both  as  in- 
dividuals and  as  nations,  that  is  to  an 
unfortunate  degree  only  too  true.  So 
long  as  a  Negro  lived  his  normal,  so- 
called  savage  existence  in  Senegambia, 
from  our  standpoint  he  merely  cum- 
bered the  earth,  the  same  as  the  "rhinos" 
and  crocodiles.  His  life  was  held  cheap 
by  white  men  with  gunpowder  at  their 
command.  When  it  was  found,  how- 
ever, that  he  could  be  kidnaped  and 
converted  into  a  servant  at  a  profit,  he 
was  fed  and  clothed  and  protected — 
no  longer  a  human  weed.  The  moment 
it  develops  that  you  can  use  someone 
to  your  own  advantage,  no  matter  how 
little  he  meant  to  you  before,  you 
suddenly  take  a  great  interest  in  him, 
begin  to  cultivate  him  as  you  would 
[121] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

any  other  weed  that  formerly  was  "out 
of  place,"  and  you  now  find  him  good. 

We  are  constantly  extending  the  list 
of  plants  being  transferred  from  the 
"weed"  to  the  utilitarian  list;  so 
rapidly,  in  fact,  that  it  is  not  especially 
rash  to  predict  that,  as  our  knowledge 
takes  on  a  broader  sweep,  we  shall 
ultimately  find  that  every  thing,  which 
grows  has  its  uses — a  rightful  place  in 
the  world.  Then,  after  we  have 
worked  our  way  laboriously  through 
the  centuries  to  that  point  of  tolera- 
tion and  appreciation  in  respect  to  the 
vegetable  kingdom,  we  may  gradually 
extend  our  studies  to  the  animal  crea- 
tion, and  to  our  own  kind,  and  find, 
as  the  millennium  is  approached,  good 
in  everything  and  everybody. 

I  am  not  an  avowed  "Scientist."  In 
fact,  I  scoff  at  times  at  certain  of  their 
contentions;  but  I  have  been  told 
that  a  trend  of  thought  towards  belief 
in  the  Universal  Good  leads  me  danger- 
ously near  to  the  fold  in  which  many 
[  122] 


Why  is  a  Weed* 


seem  to  find  the  blessing  of  content. 
I  wish  I  could  bring  myself  to  think 
that  all  that  takes  place  is  right  and 
good.  But  I  do  not.  And  yet,  when 
I  try  to  analyze  my  conceptions,  I  find 
myself  ranged  on  the  side  of  natural 
law,  and  attributing  a  large  share  of 
those  things  which  I  consider  wrong 
and  unjust,  and  positively  bad,  to  the 
attempted  enforcement  of  man-made 
mandates;  to  operations  conducted 
under  the  protecting  wings  of  legis- 
lative or  judicial  enactments  and  de- 
cisions. With  whatever  Nature  ordains 
or  does  I  find  no  particular  fault;  but 
I  question  very  seriously  sometimes 
the  schemes  and  judgments  of  mere 
men.  More  and  more  we  seem  to  be 
relying  upon  state  legislatures  and 
Congress  to  bring  peace  and  joy  and 
happiness  to  every  door.  It  can't  be 
done  that  way. 

I  once  took  a  keen  interest  in  the 
science  of  how  to  make  people  proper 
and  prosperous  by  statutory  methods. 

[123] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

In  fact,  I  pursued  a  university  course 
that  led  to  a  LL.B.  degree,  and  the 
Supreme  Court  let  me  by  with  it,  and 
licensed  me  to  practice.  But  I  never 
did.  I  consider,  of  course,  that  a 
knowledge  of  human  law  is  a  very 
interesting  and  indeed  a  useful  part  of 
one's  education.  I  have  never  con- 
sidered that  the  time  I  spent  on  Black- 
stone's  Commentaries  and  upon  Di- 
gests of  Appellate  Court  decisions  and 
dictums  was  time  wasted.  On  the 
contrary,  it  served  to  show  more 
clearly  than  anything  else  possibly 
could  the  impossibility  of  reconciling 
so-called  personal,  property,  state,  na- 
tional and  international  "rights"  with 
human  nature  and  primeval  plans. 
What  is  sound  law  in  one  state,  or 
other  man-delimited  area  of  the  earth's 
surface,  is  rejected  entirely,  and  a 
diametrically-opposite  procedure  en- 
forced in  another. 

The  study  of  the  civil  law  seems  to 
lead  naturally  into  politics,  and  what 

[124] 


Why  is  a  Weed* 


is  commonly  called  the  public  service. 
I  know  a  little  something  of  both. 
All  citizens  should.  I  do  not  advise 
young  men  to  abstain  from  such  study 
or  from  seeking  such  experiences.  So 
long  as  we  live  under  present  accepted 
forms  of  Government  it  is  indeed  a 
duty  one  owes  the  state.  Each  genera- 
tion has  to  traverse  the  same  circle. 
Each  fancies  it  is  wiser  and  more 
progressive  than  the  last,  but  the  end 
is  ever  the  same.  Human  nature  does 
not  change.  You  may  camouflage  a 
Prussian,  but  scratch  the  vari-colored 
paint  with  either  a  pen  point  or  a  knife, 
and  the  ancestral  barbarian  is  at  once 
uncovered. 

Natural  law  is  the  thing  that  now 
interests  me  most,  but  I  find  no  college 
that  maintains  a  course  leading  to  the 
degree  of  Bachelor  or  Master  or  Doctor 
of  Natural  Law.  That  would  be  a 
title  to  be  proud  of,  but  it  is  beyond 
human  reach.  The  most  one  can  be 
in  that  study  is  a  "prep"  or  a  fresh- 

[125] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

man.  The  requirements  for  gradua- 
tion are  so  great  that  they  are  beyond 
human  attainment.  They  "pluck"  a 
lot  of  men  at  West  Point  and  Annap- 
olis, but  a  chosen  few  get  through. 
Not  so  in  this  school  of  Nature.  We 
can  matriculate  and  spend  a  little  time 
in  laboratories,  on  the  by-ways  or  in 
the  fields,  grasp  feebly  a  few  big, 
general  propositions  perhaps,  and  fall 
back  beaten,  to  give  place  to  the  next 
wayfarer  in  a  world  of  beauty  inde- 
scribable and  mystery  unfathomable; 
a  world  in  which  even  the  "weeds"  we 
do  not  fully  understand  have  their 
designated  places,  their  own  wondrous 
processes,  their  own  lives  to  live,  quite 
as  important  to  themselves  as  if  we 
knew  their  functions,  and  recognized 
their  allotted  part. 


[126 


X 

Free  Seed  Distributions 

prodigality  of  Nature  in  her 
JL  ceaseless  endeavor  at  reproduction 
is  something  that  fairly  staggers  the 
imagination.  You  have  only  to  ex- 
amine the  seedheads  of  the  plants 
growing  along  any  roadside  in  Septem- 
ber to  appreciate  this  fact.  Mathema- 
ticians will  have  to  coin  new  terms  and 
find  new  and  illuminating  phrases  if 
they  ever  undertake  a  census  of  the  old 
Earth's  annual  seed  production  and 
distribution.  Apparently  Nature  is 
more  interested  in  propagating  plants 
that  we  regard  as  "pests"  than  she  is 
in  extending  the  field  of  what  we  call 
the  useful  or  the  merely  ornamental. 

The  fact   that   there   are   so   many 
highly-organized  growths  in  this  world 
[127] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

that  have  thus  far  defied  all  our  efforts 
to  make  them  serve  us  certainly  tends 
to  discredit  the  theory  that  all  things 
that  live  in  earth  or  air  or  sea  were 
created  for  our  own  particular  benefit. 
We  shall  either  have  to  find  some 
human  use  for  everything  that  exists 
around  us,  or  acknowledge  that  much 
that  we  see  was  placed  here  to  serve 
some  other  purpose  than  our  own; 
which  is  to  admit  that  we  are  after  all 
not  the  only  things  worth  while  in  this 
mundane  scheme,  and  that  in  de- 
stroying so-called  "weeds,"  and  in 
classing  vast  quantities  of  inorganic 
matter  as  "useless,"  we  are  only  con- 
fessing how  little  we  really  know. 

If  thistles,  for  instance,  were  not 
intended  by  Nature  to  multiply,  and 
occupy  great  areas,  why  did  the  Old 
Mother  invest  them  with  such  resisting 
powers,  and  guard  the  fruit  so  jealously 
until  matured  and  ready  for  consign- 
ment to  the  winged  winds?  Until  this 
arrogant  being  called  man  can  find  out 
[128! 


Free  Seed  Distributions 


what  God  gave  him  thistles  for  he 
must  of  course  keep  on  fighting  them, 
and  passing  laws  and  making  it  a 
crime  to  allow  them  to  run  to  seed. 
Meantime,  dear  reader,  did  you  ever 
examine  thistle  grain  in  the  original 
package?  I  suppose  that  thousands 
of  farmers  and  farm  boys  cut  down 
millions  of  thistles  every  summer  who 
have  never  studied  a  ripening  seed- 
head.  Of  course,  the  pestiferous  plants 
are  supposed  to  be  cut  before  the  seed 
is  set;  but  nevertheless  many  of  them 
escape  the  scythe,  and  each  one  of 
these  has  seed  enough  to  thistleize  a 
whole  community.  Next  August  locate 
the  purple  bloom  of  our  common  "bull" 
thistle,  wait  until  it  has  turned  brown 
at  the  tip  and  the  bulbous  seed  pouch 
beneath  is  well  distended.  Then  cut 
one  of  these  from  the  parent  stem  and 
dissect  it.  I  know  where  a  family  of 
them  grew  through  this  hot,  dry  sum- 
mer in  a  boggy  roadside  into  real 
giants  of  their  tribe,  one  having  a  butt 
[129] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

as  big  as  a  cornstalk,  and  standing 
fully  seven  feet  in  height,  bearing 
about  one  hundred  well-filled  seedbags. 
Note,  first  of  all,  that  the  plant  itself 
is  armed  at  every  point  with  well- 
sharpened  needles  for  its  own  protec- 
tion. Observe  then  the  prickly  armor- 
plate  so  perfectly  over-lapped  around 
the  seed  pod,  and  when  your  knife  has 
let  you  inside  you  will  see  at  once  that 
whoever  planned  the  propagation  of 
this  plant,  not  only  hedged  in  the 
bright,  corn-colored  seeds  with  every 
possible  precaution  to  provide  com- 
plete security,  but  furnished  each  one 
with,  say,  twelve  to  twenty  silken 
fibres,  each  perhaps  an  inch  in  length, 
which,  when  the  fully  ripened  grains 
finally  burst  their  bounds,  open  out 
like  a  flower  in  full  bloom  that  the 
lightest  breeze  may  bear  them  away  to 
spread  the  species.  These  seed  grains 
themselves  are  hard  as  good  wheat, 
capable  of  taking  care  of  themselves, 
one  would  say,  under  almost  any  cir- 

[130] 


Free  Seed  Distributions 


cumstances.  Note  the  wonderful  color 
of  this  maturing  grain  and  the  infinite 
grace  and  delicacy  of  the  thistle-down 
itself.  There  is  beauty  unexcelled  else- 
where in  Nature  inside  each  thistle  pod 
that  manages  to  evade  man's  warfare 
upon  it.  I  suppose  chemists  have 
tried,  as  yet  in  vain,  to  find  the  secret 
of  the  value  of  this  grain  and  the 
dainty  fibre  attached  to  it.  If  both 
are  not  brought  forth  for  someone's 
comfort  or  pleasure,  why  in  the  world 
has  Nature  gone  to  such  extreme  to 
safeguard  its  maturity?  These  seem  to 
be  among  the  few  things  that  even 
German  science  has  not  yet  found  use 
for.  If  they  were  not  brought  into  the 
kingdom  for  our  benefit  then  what 
moral  right  have  we  to  seek  their 
absolute  extermination? 

The  Canada  thistle  is  the  one  special 
object  of  man's  wrath  in  this  latitude. 
It  disputes  doggedly  the  idea  that  this 
country  belongs  to  the  plow.  It  is  the 
one  black-listed  outlaw  of  the  fields, 

[131] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

and  in  point  of  fecundity  holds  all 
manner  of  records.  Every  state  and 
county  and  township  has  a  Canada 
Thistle  Law,  making  it  a  misdemeanor 
for  any  property  owner  to  permit  it  to 
run  to  seed.  There  are  thousands  of 
these  seeds  ripening  within  five 
minutes'  walk  of  where  I  write,  but  I 
am  no  commissioner  for  the  execution 
of  this  law  repealing  a  natural  law; 
moreover,  I  do  not  own  the  soil  where 
they  are  laughing  as  their  seed-heads 
swell  and  grow  fat  these  autumn  days. 
Any  man  who  discovers  a  human  use 
for  the  real  Canadian  thistle-down  will 
have  earned  a  generous  reward.  It  is 
a  fibre  so  super-refined,  so  amazingly 
sensitive  to  the  faintest  breath  of  air, 
that  I  would  say  that  in  comparison 
with  this  prickly  pest  that  far-famed 
spinner  the  silk-worm,  whose  handi- 
work we  value  so  highly,  is  a  mere 
novice  in  the  business. 

I  am  no  botanist.     I  claim  no  expert 
knowledge  of  these  things.     I  make  no 
[132] 


Free  Seed  Distributions 


claim  to  exactness  in  dealing  with  the 
quantity  of  seed  produced  each  year 
by  various  trees  and  plants,  but  I  know 
that  if  you  pick  one  of  those  wonderful 
spherical  gray  dandelion  heads,  and 
look  at  it  closely,  you  will  find  your- 
self in  the  midst  of  a  miniature  forest. 
The  little  brown  trunks  are  growing  in 
a  pale-green  soil,  and  each  sends  up  a 
tall  white  silken  tree  with  a  star-like 
top.  No  master  spider  weaving  his 
astounding  net,  no  human  lacemaker  of 
highest  skill,  has  ever  surpassed  the 
fascinating  fabrication  worked  out  by 
this  pest.  Here  is  another  case  where 
the  seed  is  equipped  for  aviation,  al- 
though in  a  manner  differing  from  the 
thistle-down.  The  thistle  grain  has 
sails  which  radiate  from  a  common 
centre.  Each  tiny  dark-brown  dan- 
delion seed-sheath  sends  out  one  fairy 
thread  that  puts  forth  laterals  at  the 
top.  These,  interlacing,  form  the  outer 
surface  of  the  fluffy  globe  you  never 
stop  to  study.  How  many  seeds  in 

[i33l 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

each  thistle  pod?  How  many  in  each 
dandelion  head?  I  give  it  up.  Still, 
I  should  guess  that  there  are  not  less 
than  100  grains  in  each  thistle-bag, 
and  perhaps  150  seeds  in  every  dan- 
delion top  that  reaches  fruition.  You 
can  do  some  multiplying  yourself,  if 
you  are  interested. 

Then  there  is  that  old  friend  of  my 
youth,  the  common  cockle-burr.  I 
know  one  use  he  has,  anyhow:  his 
flower  provides  food  for  butterflies  and 
other  folk.  Today  I  found  bugs  that 
looked  and  acted  like  own  cousins  to 
the  honey  bee — and  one  that  wore  a 
tight-fitting  Nile-green  satin  suit  was 
fairly  reveling  in  these  burr  blooms. 
So,  you  see,  they  serve  an  important 
purpose  to  others,  if  not  to  ourselves. 
The  burr  has  no  defenders  that  I  know 
of,  but  those  little  oat-like  seeds  you 
find  inside  each  thorny  pod  have 
doubtless  value  to  somebody,  if  we 
only  knew  about  it.  I  know  that 
they  have  as  many  lives  as  a  cat,  pos- 

[i34] 


Free  Seed  Distributions 


sibly  good  for  three  years,  waiting  and 
watching  for  you  to  put  in  a  corn  crop 
where  they  have  been  slumbering. 
Our  grandmothers  once  thought  that 
catnip  had  its  place  in  the  domestic 
economy.  If  its  "tea"  could  only  be 
popularized  we  might  send  less  money 
annually  to  the  Orient,  for  there  is 
ample  provision  made  by  Nature  for 
its  reproduction  on  any  desired  scale. 
Any  thrifty  plant  carries  stalks  that 
bear  two  or  three  hundred  seed  sheaths 
that  mature  and  open  at  the  end,  after 
the  manner  of  your  old-fashioned  dian- 
thus  or  garden  pinks;  each  pod  with  a 
litter  of,  say,  four  little  black  "kittens," 
each  waiting  only  the  sun  and  rain  of 
another  season  to  grow  up  into  nice 
big  catnips;  and  as  for  old  "tansy," 
she  bears  in  her  arms  each  September 
enough  of  her  own  peculiar  feathery 
seeds  to  plant  an  acre. 

Knowest  thou  how  the  wild  mustard 
maintains  its  unwelcome  presence  in 
the  grain  fields  ?  Have  you  calculated 

[i35] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

the  wild  onion's  propagating  possi- 
bilities? Its  seed-top  has  perhaps  fifty 
pods,  each  with  four  tiny  black  trea- 
sures ready  for  business  next  spring. 
Pinch  these  seed  pockets,  and  you  will 
release  something  delicate  in  the  per- 
fumery line.  You  may  not  want  it 
upon  your  handkerchief;  still  it  is 
merely  suggestive  of  the  real  thing  in 
onion  odordom.  Everybody  knows 
plantain,  with  its  tough  mass  of  fibrous 
roots  and  its  tall  seed  stem.  I  saw  one 
today  that  was  nearly  two  feet  high, 
bearing  seeds  for  at  least  twelve  inches 
of  its  length — five  or  six  hundred  of 
them,  I  should  say,  and  this  same 
vigorous  plant  had  six  or  eight  of  these 
stalks.  It  then  appears  that  this  ex- 
ceptionally fruitful  mother  had  borne 
probably  3,000  of  the  hard,  light-brown 
seeds,  each  theoretically  capable  of 
germination  next  year. 

Old  Helianthus,  too,  is  the  parent  of 
children  countless.  Most  folk  call  him 
the  sunflower.  He  was  once  a  mere 

[136] 


Free  Seed  Distributions 


road-side  pest.  Now  we  cultivate  and 
"improve"  him.  You  will  find  little 
in  Nature  more  marvelous  than  the 
great  flaming  disc  as  the  fruit  of  its 
labors  approaches  maturity.  The 
colors  and  the  beautiful  detail  of  the 
huge  blossom  should  make  mankind 
duly  humble  in  its  presence.  The  work- 
manship is  perfect.  Here  is  a  case 
where  we  have  discovered  values  to  be 
utilized  in  our  own  affairs.  The  mod- 
ern farmer  has  found  the  sunflower  a 
great  silage  crop,  and  that  the  seed 
produced  in  such  abundance  puts  fat 
on  animals  to  which  it  may  be  fed,  so 
it  is  no  longer  just  a  weed. 

The  more  you  study  these  things  the 
more  you  will  see  that  the  plants  we 
figure  we  have  the  least  use  for  are  the 
very  ones  Nature  tries  most  persis- 
tently to  perpetuate  by  giving  them 
special  resisting  powers.  I  have  spent 
many  odd  hours  during  which  I  forgot 
entirely  the  printing  office,  the  rapac- 
ity of  profiteers  and  tax  gatherers, 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

trying  to  get  a  little  elementary  knowl- 
edge of  the  tremendous  preparations 
made  by  the  innumerable  "weeds"  and 
shrubs  and  trees  that  live  along  the 
fences  and  in  the  woodlands  looking 
towards  reproduction. 

Can  you  count  the  seeds  which  the 
sumac  bushes  in  one  little  roadside 
clump  have  ready  for  distribution  as 
the  scarlet  leaves  begin  to  fall  ?  I  have 
tried,  but  one  autumn  afternoon  was 
all  too  short  for  any  such  enumeration. 
I  know  that  each  one  of  those  wine- 
colored,  plush-like  clusters  carried  150 
to  200;  that  each  bush  is  full  of  these; 
and  that  they  are  so  light  and  downy 
that  they  are  easily  knocked  about  and 
scattered  where  Mother  Sumac  thinks 
they  will  do  the  most  good.  At  a 
rough  guess  I  should  say  that  each 
fairly  developed  sumac  strews  any- 
where from  1,000  to  2,000  of  its  seeds 
in  the  grass  about  its  roots.  Not  only 
that,  but  a  lot  of  wild  rose  bushes  have 
for  years  made  their  home  around  the 

[138] 


Free  Seed  Distributions 


particular  sumac  thicket  of  which  I 
speak.  These  are  carrying  bright  red 
berries,  each,  when  opened,  found  to 
be  the  bearer  of  a  neatly-stowed  nest 
of  seeds,  with  hides  as  hard  as  flint, 
looking  not  unlike  small  grains  of 
wheat.  Not  far  away  a  "wild"  or 
stray  asparagus  plant  was  showing  its 
scarlet  fruit.  Pinch  one  of  these  seed 
houses,  and  it  "pops,"  exposing  in  its 
juices  five  black  "babies,"  not  unlike 
those  borne  by  your  old-fashioned 
four-o'clocks. 

On  a  wire  fence  nearby  the  wood- 
bine grows.  One  of  these  creepers  is 
laden  with  purple  berries.  A  wild 
grape  vine  is  also  here.  The  fruits 
have  other  points  of  resemblance  than 
their  form  and  rich,  dark  coloring. 
Each  grape  and  berry  commonly  holds 
four  seeds,  each  with  two  flat  sides,  the 
lot  neatly  fitted  together  in  globular 
form — like  a  quartered  orange.  Then 
there  are  the  rich  red  high-bush  cran- 
berries that  are  much  admired  each 

[139] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

fall  in  our  dooryard.  There  is  no 
better  shrub  to  plant  along  the  north 
wall  of  your  house,  or  in  a  shady  nook. 
A  flattened  seed  is  fattening  inside  of 
each,  immersed  in  liquid  red.  You  will 
find  something  interesting  also  within 
those  scarlet  decorations  that  tell  you 
that  your  Thunberg  Barberry  is  ex- 
pecting cold  weather  soon. 

An  old  wild  cherry  tree,  with  a 
spread  of  thirty  feet  or  more,  bore  a  big 
crop  this  year,  and  as  I  walked  by  it 
the  other  day  it  was  filled  with  robins 
filled  with  cherries.  Apparently  they 
were  so  sated  that  they  cared  little  for 
my  presence  underneath  the  branches 
on  which  they  sat.  In  fact,  at  first  I 
did  not  discover  them  at  all.  It  was 
only  when  I  reached  for  the  tip-end  of 
a  limb  to  test  the  fruit  myself  that  the 
first  bird  made  a  move.  Then  the 
whole  party  flitted  about,  disclosing 
that  the  harvest  was  on  in  earnest. 
They  did  not  leave  the  tree,  however. 
It  has  been  a  hot,  dry  summer,  and 
[140] 


Free  Seed  Distributions 


there  is  more  seed  than  juice  and  pulp 
inside  the  black-skinned  berries.  I  did 
not  stop  to  make  a  calculation  as  to 
the  number  of  cherry  stones  matured 
ready  for  planting  by  this  one  tree. 
That  would  not  only  have  been  the 
task  of  hours,  but  I  should  even  then 
have  been  compelled  to  estimate  the 
number  that  had  already  been  ac- 
counted for  via  the  bird  route.  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  there  were  enough  to 
plant  several  acres  to  wild  cherries,  if 
any  orchardist  cared  to  take  up  their 
culture.  Unfortunately,  from  the  wild 
cherry  point  of  view,  comparatively 
few  of  the  stones  ever  live  to  respond 
to  the  tender  solicitations  of  spring- 
time. 

Civilized  man  does  not  approve  of 
Nature's  prodigality  in  this  business, 
and  if  he  will  only  carry  his  avowed 
policy  of  repression  far  enough  the 
other  forms  of  earth  life  will  doubtless 
be  jolly  glad  of  it. 


141 


XI 

Improving  on  Nature 

WHAT  we  call  improving  upon 
various  forms  of  animal  and 
vegetable  life  is  of  course  no  improve- 
ment at  all,  so  far  as  the  basic  ma- 
terials are  concerned.  The  stringless 
bean  suits  our  Mary  much  better  than 
the  old  type,  but  the  pod  has  been 
deprived  of  its  native  strength  and 
resisting  power.  The  spineless  cactus 
brings  the  desert  plant  within  the 
realms  of  cattle  forage,  but  it  has  been 
shorn  of  a  characteristic  that  nature 
had  found  desirable  from  the  cactus — 
not  the  human — standpoint.  Freed 
from  artificial  manipulation,  these 
changes  of  form  are  of  course  soon  lost. 
Rose-growers  have  produced  the 

[i43l 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

"Baby  Rambler,"  a  low-growing, 
bushy  little  shrub,  producing  its  flower 
clusters  profusely  enough,  and  making 
beds  that  we  agree  are  most  attractive 
on  our  lawns ;  but  leave  them  to  them- 
selves for  a  year  or  two,  and  you  will 
find  them  surreptitiously  throwing  out 
long  runners,  and  quietly  reverting 
back  to  the  climbing  originals. 

So  with  all  our  so-called  improved 
varieties  of  domestic  animals.  It  is 
only  through  the  persistent  application 
of  all  the  laws  known  to  the  science  of 
breeding,  developed  through  genera- 
tions of  experience  and  experimenta- 
tion, that  we  are  able  to  maintain 
them  in  the  form  we  deem  most  de- 
sirable for  our  use,  or  most  pleasing 
to  our  eye  or  taste.  Free  them  from 
this  control,  and  they  would  soon 
either  perish  from  inability  to  cope 
with  natural  conditions,  or  work  rapid- 
ly back  to  hardier  types  differing  de- 
cidedly from  their  present  state.  Na- 
ture's idea  of  a  bovine  species  suited 

[144] 


Improving  on  Nature 


to  the  arid  west  is  the  bison.  Man- 
made  breeds  of  fine  cattle  have  now 
displaced  the  buffalo,  but  man  has  dis- 
covered, at  no  small  cost  to  himself 
and  his  herds,  that  if  he  expects  the 
artificial  successfully  to  withstand  the 
privations  to  which  animals  are  sub- 
jected in  the  Rocky  Mountain  region 
he  must,  even  in  the  case  of  the  hardy 
white-faced  Hereford,  provide  at  least 
occasional  support.  Hence  the  hay 
ranch.  Hence  the  carloads  of  cotton- 
seed meal.  Hence  the  feed  bills  that 
sometimes  more  than  wipe  out  all  the 
ranchman's  profits. 

However,  in  the  entire  field  of  human 
activities  there  is  no  more  creditable, 
no  more  marvelous,  demonstration  of 
man's  cunning  than  in  this  same  line 
of  work.  Man  cannot  create  some- 
thing out  of  nothing,  but  give  him  but 
one  plant  or  one  pair  of  animals  to 
work  with,  and  there  will  be  scarcely 
a  limit  to  what  he  will  produce  from 
them  in  the  course  of  time.  You  have 

[i45l 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

only  to  visit  any  great  agricultural  ex- 
position to  appreciate  that  fact. 
Study  the  displays  of  products  of  our 
orchards,  gardens,  pastures  and  feed- 
lots,  visit  with  the  hens,  or  go  to  a 
bench  show,  and  take  your  hat  off  to 
the  great  plant  and  animal  breeders 
for  their  masterly  manipulation  of  the 
laws  of  heredity,  selection,  environ- 
ment and  alimentation  in  modifying 
and  multiplying  varieties  and  sub- 
varieties  in  the  production  of  which 
there  seems  to  be  no  end. 

The  study  of  animal  life  is  an  abso- 
lute delight.  It  makes  little  difference 
whether  it  be  a  canary  bird  "rough- 
housing"  the  tiny  swing  in  his  brass 
cage;  a  foal  by  its  mother's  side  in 
the  pasture;  lambs  or  puppies  at 
play;  young  bulls  or  big  boys  bunting 
the  breath  out  of  one  another,  or  ele- 
phants trying  to  be  funny.  There 
is  every  reason  for  believing  that  all 
these,  that  all  animals  in  fact,  find 
interest  also  in  watching  what  we  our- 
[146] 


Improving  on  Nature 


selves  do.  We  are  possibly  as  amus- 
ing, as  puzzling,  as  great  an  enigma  to 
them  as  they  are  to  us. 

Strolling  down  the  road  the  other 
day  I  came  by  a  lot  in  which  a  drove 
of  young  Duroc-Jersey  shotes  were 
interned.  I  stopped  and  watched 
them  working  away  at  the  weeds  and 
rooting  for  grubs.  One  of  them  sus- 
pended operations,  looked  me  over  for 
a  moment  and  gave  a  grunt,  which 
from  long  familiarity  with  the  species 
I  knew  to  be  a  friendly  greeting.  It 
said,  as  plainly  as  if  it  had  been  uttered 
in  good  English,  "Hello,  where  did  you 
come  from?"  He  was  looking  at  me 
intently,  knowing  well  enough  that  I 
was  a  stranger.  I  said  something  in- 
tended to  encourage  a  prospective 
conversation,  which  drew  forth  a  sec- 
ond good-humored  grunt,  and  the  pig 
started  to  walk  slowly  towards  me. 
I  thought  we  were  in  for  a  pleasant 
little  chat,  but  just  then  one  of  the 
others  looked  up,  seeing  me  now  for 

[i47l 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

the  first  time,  and  with  a  snort  of 
warning  stampeded  the  whole  bunch — 
including  my  erstwhile  casual  friend — 
tails  up,  towards  the  furthest  side  of 
the  enclosure;  and  they  did  not  stop 
running  until  they  felt  themselves  en- 
tirely safe.  I  laughed  at  the  frantic 
foot-race,  and  suppose  they  fancied 
they  had  scored  one  on  me.  Pigs  are 
not  the  only  folk  that  can  at  times  be 
hurried  into  panic  by  someone  yelling 
"Boo!" 

You  would  be  surprised  at  the  extent 
of  the  vocabulary  of  most  animals. 
You  may  be  familiar  with  the  one 
expression  most  frequently  heard. 
Most  people  only  know  birds  and 
animals  by  some  one  or  two  of  their 
remarks;  but  among  themselves  many 
of  them  resort  to  a  much  greater 
variety  of  tones  and  words  than  they 
are  commonly  given  credit  for. 
Whether  you  observe  hens,  hogs  or 
humans,  there  is  language  everywhere 
that  reflects  satisfaction,  fear,  warning, 
[148] 


Improving  on  Nature 


love,  solicitude,  peace,  war.  Ever  hear 
the  talk  of  cows  and  calves  as  nursing 
time  brings  them  up  at  the  close  of  day 
along  opposite  sides  of  the  pasture 
fence?  Do  you  need  an  interpreter  to 
translate  the  note  of  deep  anxiety  in 
the  bovine  mother's  voice  as  she  sees 
you  haul  her  blessed  "baby"  off,  pos- 
sibly to  the  butcher?  Does  the  child 
that  falls  and  hurts  itself  give  utter- 
ance to  anything  differing  especially 
from  the  cries  of  the  pig  fast  in  an 
opening  he  cannot  wriggle  through? 
Surely  we  are  all  akin  and  in  the  same 
boat  still,  just  as  when  Noah  led  us  into 
the  ark  together,  two  by  two,  and  we 
may  all  reach  the  same  old  Ararat  again 
some  day,  and  pass  out  side  by  side. 

I  have  spoken  somewhat  at  divers 
times  in  derogation  of  the  animal  called 
man.  I  still  insist  that  he  is  not  the 
God-like  creature  painted  by  himself. 
He  is  no  better,  in  my  opinion,  in  most 
particulars,  than  his  fellows  of  the 
earth  and  air  and  sea.  He  may  be 

[i49l 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

more  clever,  but  even  that  is  by  no 
means  clear.  The  only  question  is  as 
to  whether  he  is  worse  than  his  kin- 
folk  of  the  woods  and  waves.  Here 
my  indictment  stops.  That  he  is  more 
cruel  than  any  of  his  fellow  creatures 
does  not  admit  of  doubt;  not  only 
more  cruel  to  his  own  kind,  but  to  all 
other  forms  of  created  life,  than  any 
other  animal  or  plant  that  enters  into 
all  this  mundane  mystery.  He  kills 
for  the  pure  joy  of  killing,  and  in  his 
dealings  with  all  other  forms  of  life 
knows  not  the  meaning  of  such  a  word 
as  mercy.  And  yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  is  capable  of  sacrifices  for  others,  is 
capable  of  deeds  of  self-annihilating 
heroism,  that  so  far  as  we  can  tell  are 
unknown  to  the  fauna  and  flora  by 
which  he  is  accompanied  in  this  phase 
of  the  earth's  existence.  He  is  a  con- 
stant contradiction  of  himself;  the 
super-good  so  interwoven  with  the 
abysmal-bad  that  he  remains  the  one 
great  puzzle  of  the  ages. 

[150] 


Improving  on  Nature 


Most  of  his  fellows  follow  a  com- 
paratively simple  life;  a  routine  that 
can  be  easily  traced.  You  will  know 
to  a  certainty  what  to  expect  from  a 
cow  or  cat.  You  can  bank  on  what 
will  probably  be  done  by  a  donkey  or 
a  dromedary.  You  do  not  need  to 
figure  closely  on  the  actions  of  a  bee 
or  a  barracuda.  Their  ways  are  fixed, 
dependable.  You  know  before  you 
plant  it  what  a  seed  will  bring  forth  at 
the  harvest,  but  what  a  man  will 
develop,  after  he  has  found  his  own 
powers  and  limitations,  the  wisest  of 
prophets  may  not  predict.  He  is  the 
sum  of  all  by  whom  he  was  preceded; 
the  composite  of  all  who  have  gone 
before — angel  today,  the  very  devil 
tomorrow — and  he  can  no  more  help 
being  the  inconsistent  creature  that 
he  is  than  the  rest  of  creation  can  help 
being  cast  in  unchanging  moulds.  He 
has  the  fidelity  of  a  dog,  the  treachery 
of  a  tiger;  the  gentleness  of  a  dove, 
the  fury  of  a  hornet;  the  patience  of 

[151] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

an  ox,  the  cunning  of  a  serpent;  the 
timidity  of  a  rabbit,  the  courage  of  a 
lion.  He  breakfasts  with  the  birds 
upon  seeds  and  berries,  and  banquets 
with  the  beasts  upon  flesh,  fish  and 
fowl.  All  is  grist  that  comes  to  man's 
mill.  Lord  over  all,  he  appropriates 
for  himself  the  fruits  of  his  own  and 
of  all  other  labor,  and  stands  forth, 
with  all  his  faults  and  virtues,  at  once 
the  best  and  the  worst  of  all  created 
things. 

Wonderful  as  has  been  man's  work 
in  subduing  and  bending  animal  and 
vegetable  life  to  suit  his  own  ideas, 
strangely  enough  he  has  paid  com- 
paratively little  attention  to  the  im- 
provement of  his  own  species.  The 
percentage  of  good  specimens  of  the 
race  in  the  human  family,  from  the 
physical  standpoint,  is  lower  than 
among  any  other  class  of  animals.  If 
you  could  strip  a  thousand  men,  women 
and  children,  and  line  them  up  for 
examination  and  comparison  with  a 


Improving  on  Nature 


thousand  linnets,  lizards  or  leopards, 
you  would  instantly  confess  the  truth. 
Our  laws  license,  protect  and  encourage 
the  perpetuation  of  the  incapable,  the 
incompetent,  the  malformed,  the  un- 
desirables of  every  name  and  nature. 
With  the  beasts  and  birds  there  is 
only  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  Only 
the  sound  and  normal  ones,  or  those  of 
superior  cunning,  can  hold  their  own. 
The  result  is  splendid  uniformity  in 
all  the  most  vital  characteristics. 

It  is  only  when  man  begins  directing 
the  procedure  that  the  weaklings  and 
helpless  begin  frequently  to  appear. 
No  one  ever  heard  of  hog  cholera 
getting  a  wild  boar,  or  tuberculosis 
claiming  a  Rocky  Mountain  goat. 
Most  wild  animals  die  the  victims  of 
some  other  animal's  cunning,  of  star- 
vation— as  did  the  quail  in  our  vicinity 
one  snowy  winter — or  of  old  age;  and 
eighty  percent  of  them  are  fine  speci- 
mens of  their  breed  as  contrasted  with, 
say,  twenty  percent  of  equally  well- 

[i53] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

balanced  individuals  of  our  own  kind. 
The  comparison  is  not  flattering  to  our 
vanity.  The  pity  of  it  all  is  that  so 
many  men  and  women  are  doomed  to 
drag  through  a  weary  life,  possessed  of 
a  really  good  brain  and  heart,  housed 
in  a  wretchedly  unfit  body.  The  big 
healthy  "husky,"  even  though  he  has 
but  limited  mentality,  glories  in  his 
good  digestion,  laughs  and  grows  fat. 
He  may  not  gain  the  fame  of  frail 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  but  he  lives 
his  life  in  solid  comfort.  He  can  al- 
ways eat  and  always  sleep,  and,  so  far 
as  physical  existence  is  concerned,  a 
brawny  plumber  had  it  all  over  the 
doomed  author  of  "St.  Agnes'  Eve." 

"A  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body"  is 
the  only  combination  ensuring  tran- 
quillity and  sanity,  and  yet  not  one 
person  in  a  thousand  can  fill  the  speci- 
fication. It  is  the  scarcity  of  this 
balance  that  is  responsible  for  most  of 
the  suffering,  squalor  and  misery  that 
afflict  mankind.  Some  progress  has 

[i54] 


Improving  on  Nature 


been  made  along  hygienic  and  even 
eugenic  lines  looking  towards  the  ap- 
plication of  principles  that  make  for 
the  elimination  of  defects,  and  the 
establishment  of  desirable  conforma- 
tion and  characteristics;  but  the  out- 
look for  progress  is  not  encouraging. 
Nature  does  her  best  to  maintain  some 
sort  of  equilibrium  and  perpetuate  the 
species  by  directing  Dan  Cupid  to 
bring  opposites  together.  A  brunette 
is  apt,  therefore,  to  seek  the  compan- 
ionship of  a  blonde,  and  vice  versa. 
Those  lacking  in  physical  strength  are 
the  greatest  admirers  of  overflowing 
vitality.  A  poetess  is  attracted  by  a 
pugilist,  and  probably  it  is  best  that 
such  is  the  case.  If  athletes  only 
wedded  athletes  a  race  of  magnificent 
human  animals  might  result,  but  men- 
tal refinement  would  presently  dis- 
appear. If  the  artistic  only  inter- 
mated  with  their  own  we  might  some 
day  have  fewer  "daubs"  in  our  gal- 
leries, less  trash  in  our  literature,  and 

[iSSl 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

not  quite  so  much  "jazz"  in  our  music; 
but  who  would  have  body-bulk  enough 
to  move  our  mountains  and  pianos? 
So  it  is  more  than  likely  that  we  shall 
go  on  as  we  are,  trusting  to  blind 
chance;  meantime  enlarging  our  peni- 
tentiaries, sanitariums,  homes  for  the 
feeble-minded,  poor  farms,  divorce 
courts,  and  military  establishments. 

There  is  no  fact  more  thoroughly 
demonstrated  in  animal  breeding  than 
that  out-crossing  gives  fresh  vigor,  and 
that  long-continued  inbreeding  within 
narrow  limits  brings  inevitable  deteri- 
oration; but  in  the  face  of  this  known 
fact  royalty  still  insists  upon  marrying 
only  royalty.  Hence  Hapsburg  im- 
beciles and  Hohenzollern  irresponsibles. 
They  are  themselves  to  be  pitied,  for 
there  is  only  irresponsibility,  idiocy  and 
lunacy  forced  upon  them.  They  never 
had  a  chance  from  the  beginning,  and 
it  cost  the  bloodiest  war  in  history  to 
get  rid  of  them.  A  degenerate  prince 
of  the  blood,  who  loved  and  married  a 

[156] 


Improving  on  Nature 


healthy,  wholesome  peasant  girl,  was 
forced  to  give  her  up  for  some  flat- 
chested,  stupid  daughter  of  imperial 
pedigree,  who  had  much  better  have 
been  the  wife  of  a  six-foot  guardsman. 
Likewise  money  must  mate  with 
money;  or  rather  the  money-ruined 
cigarette  "Johnny"  must  marry  the 
petted  product  of  some  millionaire's 
nursery,  under  penalty  of  disinheri- 
tance. Hence  an  increasing  brood  of 
pearl-decked  dolls  and  drawing-room 
drones.  Conventionality!  Always 
and  forever  conventionality!  Few  are 
brave  enough,  or  foolish  enough,  to 
defy  it.  Mrs.  Grundy  has  too  sharp 
a  tongue,  and  "Town  Topics"  comes 
out  too  regularly. 

If  men  would  spend  as  much  time 
and  money  and  thought  upon  how  to 
perfect  or  control  the  physical  and 
mental  standards  of  the  race  by  natural 
processes,  as  they  do  in  experimenta- 
tion upon  animals  and  plants  under 
domestication,  the  imagination  fairly 

[i57] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

staggers  under  the  possibilities  in- 
volved. Venus  de  Milos  and  Apollo 
Belvederes  on  every  street;  Homers 
and  Shakespeares  at  every  turn! 
Saints  on  request,  and  sinners  while 
you  wait!  Subdivisions  of  types  world 
without  end!  We  could  breed  the 
nose  off  the  face,  and  the  hair  off  the 
head!  Detectives  with  scents  as  keen 
as  a  foxhound's  would  simplify  the 
enforcement  of  the  "search  and 
seizure"  laws!  Men  with  legs  so  long 
that  stepladders  would  be  useless  sup- 
lied  on  application!  Men  with  one 
leg  or  no  legs!  Women  without 
tongues!  Pickpockets  without  hands, 
and  footpads  without  feet!  Why  not? 
See  what  we  have  done  with  dogs ! 

The  trouble  is  that  sooner  or  later 
old  Adam  would  break  loose  and  inter- 
fere. The  managing  director  of  all 
this  would  be  defied.  Some  belle  of 
the  Russian  wolf-hound  style  of  archi- 
tecture would  set  the  pace  by  eloping 
with  some  fascinating  swain  of  a 

[158] 


Improving  on  Nature 


Dachshund  type;  a  strongly-bred  Her- 
cules be  successfully  "vamped"  by  a 
pretty  pigmy;  the  baldest  man  of  the 
hairless  family  lose  his  un-thatched 
head  to  some  siren  Sutherland  sister; 
and  thus  in  the  end  we  should  no 
doubt  find  that  Nature  had  resumed 
the  sway  she  may  have  been  forced 
temporarily  to  relinquish.  You  may 
set  aside  her  laws  for  a  time,  but  none 
can  permanently  nullify  the  fiats  sent 
forth  when  deep  first  called  unto  deep, 
and  the  primal  morning  stars  sang 
joyously  together. 

"There  never  was  a  goose  so  gray 
But  soon  or  later  some  fine  day 
A  foolish  gander  comes  that  way." 


XII 

"Whafs  in  a  Name?" 

AROUND  August  first  you  could  at 
one  time  find  a  lot  of  "Chicagos" 
blooming  alongside  the  woodland  walk 
of  which  I  have  already  spoken.  Of 
course,  I  use  the  term  in  its  alleged 
aboriginal  sense.  You  can  find  them 
almost  anywhere  in  the  Skokie,  Des 
Plaines  and  Calumet  basins,  if  you 
know  where  to  look  for  them.  I  know 
little  about  Indian  dialects.  I  don't 
know  whether  ethnographic  experts 
O.K.  the  story  that  the  word  Chicago 
means  wild  onion,  or  whether  that  is 
just  a  fling  at  the  big,  noisy,  dirty 
work-shop  by  the  lake,  originated  by 
once  jealous  rivals.  Furthermore,  I 
don't  care  whether  Chicago  means  wild 
onion  or  not.  In  the  first  place,  the 
[161] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

plants  in  their  free,  wild  state  are  as 
inoffensive  as  the  "flags"  and  lilies  that 
precede  them  in  the  floral  procession 
of  the  year  in  our  marshes,  meadows 
and  sunlit  glades.  It  is  only  after  man 
sets  to  work  "improving"  on  the  wild 
plant  for  his  own  use  that  the  onion 
becomes  obtrusive.  If  you  break  the 
flower  stalk  of  a  "Chicago"  you  will 
detect  a  faint  suspicion  of  its  more 
strenuous  garden  relative,  but  that  is 
all.  In  the  second  place,  the  word 
Chicago  is  no  cheap>  brainless  copy  of 
some  Old  World  appellation.  It  is 
truly  and  distinctly  American,  besides 
being  euphonious.  For  that  reason 
the  hub  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  should 
be  proud  and  happy  in  her  name — 
even  if  she  does  have  to  "make-up" 
terribly  in  her  effort  to  become  beauti- 
ful. Come  to  think  of  it,  what  other 
city  of  major  importance  in  North 
America  possesses  a  name  that  has 
truly  New  World  flavor?  Search  the 
whole  list  from  coast  to  coast,  and 
[162] 


'Whafs  in  a  Namet 


you  can  find  no  other  name  among 
them  all  that  can  lay  the  least  claim 
to  originality. 

New  York  might  have  served  very 
well  for  some  sleepy  little  hamlet 
stowed  away  somewhere  among  the 
New  England  hills.  You  have  only 
to  visualize  the  dear,  old-fashioned 
Yorkshire  capital  to  realize  how  in- 
congruous is  the  name  as  applied  to 
the  community  that  now  fondly  im- 
agines that  the  sun  rises  and  sets  at 
the  corner  of  Broad  and  Wall.  The 
solemn  old  minster,  the  immaculate, 
ivy-clad  arches  of  St.  Mary's  abbey, 
the  crumbling  Roman  wall,  the  green 
fields  stretching  away  towards  the 
grassy  domains  of  hereditary,  fox- 
hunting squires.  The  original  a  pic- 
ture of  peace  and  poise  set  in  a  pas- 
toral paradise.  The  copy  everything 
which  old  York  is  not.  St.  Petersburg 
has  become  Petrograd.  A  stroke  of 
the  pen  would  make  New  York  what 
it  should  be — Manhattan. 

[163] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

Fancy  calling  still  the  old  home  of 
the  first  Continental  Congress  Phila- 
delphia! Are  we  so  hard-pressed  for 
indigenous,  appropriate  names  as  to 
be  compelled  to  stand  always  for  such 
an  academic  Athenian  anesthetic? 
Maybe  the  name  accounts  partly  for 
the  traditional  torpor  in  which  the 
native-born  Philadelphians  are  com- 
monly supposed  to  be  profoundly 
steeped. 

Jumping  across  the  continent  to  the 
western  coast  we  find  San  Francisco, 
borrowed  from  decadent  Spain,  with 
the  Sierras  near  at  hand  bristling  with 
beautiful  New  World  designations,  and 
in  the  upper  Mississippi  watershed 
St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis.  The  former 
had  as  well  been  John-the-Baptist,  and 
the  latter  is  a  monstrous  combination 
of  Indian  and  Greek.  And  all  the 
while  the  plains,  prairies  and  forests, 
from  whence  they  have  derived  their 
strength,  blossomed  everywhere  with 
fascinating  native  appellations.  In  the 
[164] 


'What's  in  a  Name  I 


lower  valley  St.  Louis  and  New  Or- 
leans, both  French,  and  therefore,  out 
of  place.  Why  not  let  those  names 
pass  to  rest,  along  with  juleps, 
"toddies"  and  other  relics  of  dead 
Bourbon  dynasties? 

The  answer  to  all  this  is  of  course 
the  loyalty  of  the  early  explorers  and 
colonizers  to  their  respective  home- 
lands, but  the  fact  remains  never- 
theless that  Chicago  alone  owns  the 
only  typical  North  American  name  in 
the  entire  list  of  cities  of  the  first 
magnitude.  But  we  have  forgotten  to 
refer  to  the  Mother  City  of  them  all — 
Boston.  This  is  not  only  English,  but 
in  its  etymology  awful  to  contemplate, 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  Back  Bay. 
Boston  =  Bos-town,  Bos  =  cow.  Now, 
Cow-town,  or  Cowton,  would  doubt- 
less exactly  meet  Commonwealth 
Avenue's  idea  of  what  Chicago — as  the 
packinghouse  center  of  the  world — 
should  have  been  called,  but  to  have 
it  saddled  upon  the  home  of  the  old 

[165] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

Saturday  Club,  with  its  memories  of 
Holmes  and  Longfellow  and  Emerson 
and  Lowell  and  Hawthorne  and  Whit- 
tier  and  Thoreau  and  Prescott,  of  Dana 
and  Appleton;  saying  nothing  of  the 
Adamses,  the  Hoars,  the  Quincys,  the 
Sumners,  the  Brookses,  the  Cabots,  the 
Phillips,  indefinitely,  it  is  close  to 
crime.  But  it  isn't  Boston's  fault. 
The  Pilgrim  Fathers  began  with  Ply- 
mouth, and  scattered  the  dearly-loved 
old  English  names  all  along  the  coast 
of  this  New  England  of  their  dreams. 
They  came  with  their  hearts  filled  with 
gratitude  to  Almighty  God  for  this 
haven  of  refuge  from  persecution,  and 
with  inbred  loyalty  to  the  crown;  but 
their  new  environment  soon  told  upon 
their  character.  The  shaggy,  rock- 
bound  shores  imparted  stern  resolves. 
Every  loyal  American  living  west  of 
the  Hudson  and  south  of  Hoboken 
owes  it  to  himself  to  visit  New  Eng- 
land. Every  un-American,  no  matter 
where  he  is  enjoying  the  unappreciated 
Fi661 


What's  in  a  Namet" 


blessings  of  our  institutions,  should  be 
made  to  stand  in  front  of  a  lot  of  the 
many  patriotic  shrines  so  numerous  in 
the  North  Atlantic  states.  It  is  rural 
New  England,  however,  rather  than 
her  capital  city,  rich  as  she  is  in  all 
that  stirs  our  pride,  that  must  appeal 
most  powerfully  to  those  who  go  to 
worship  there,  and  draw  Americanism 
pure  and  unadulterated  from  her  hills 
and  dales,  her  mountains,  lakes  and 
rivers,  her  rugged  headlands,  shelving 
beaches,  sea-girt  isles  and  ancient  elms; 
and  if  we  may  now  turn  from  town  to 
country — which  I  am  always  more  than 
ready  to  do — let  us  revert  at  once  to 
trees. 

In  the  sleepy  old  town  of  Ipswich, 
with  its  venerable  elms,  its  trim  colonial 
homes,  its  knitting  factory  on  the 
winding  stream,  its  traditions  of  gener- 
ations gone,  there  may  be  seen  a 
striking  monument  to  the  American 
Union  of  States.  Thousands  of  tour- 
ists have  hurried  by  it  year  after  year, 
[167]  ' 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

but  few  have  ever  even  seen  it.  I  am 
not  quite  sure  that  the  villagers  them- 
selves yet  comprehend  its  real  signifi- 
cance. They  know  that  it  is  there, 
but,  like  most  of  us,  they  place  com- 
paratively little  value  upon  that  which 
stands  nearby  their  daily  pathway. 
Doubtless  they  have  all  gazed  upon  the 
historic  shaft  of  Bunker  Hill.  All 
know  of  course  the  Minute  Man  at 
Concord  Bridge;  but  as  this  their  own 
memorial  graces  a  quiet  thoroughfare 
through  which  they  pass  each  day  as 
they  go  their  respective  ways,  it  rarely 
receives  from  them  so  much  as  a 
passing  glance.  Neither  bronze,  nor 
marble,  nor  good  gray  granite  from 
the  distant  hills  has  been  used  in  its 
creation;  yet  it  has  thus  far  success- 
fully defied  the  lightnings  and  the 
gales,  and  withstood  the  wearing  tooth 
of  Time.  In  fact,  the  lapse  of  years 
has  only  added  to  its  stature,  strength 
and  dignity;  and  each  recurring  spring- 
time brings  it  added  increment. 
[168] 


'What's  in  a  Name!" 


The  story  goes  that  once  upon  a 
time  a  handful  of  seedling  elms  was 
planted  as  a  cluster — plunged  into  the 
ground  together,  with  their  tiny  root- 
lets intertwined — and  covered  with 
the  earth  out  of  which  the  miracle  was 
ultimately  to  be  wrought.  Rejoicing 
side  by  side  in  the  sunshine  and  the 
showers  of  early  May,  and  closely 
bound  together  in  common  defense 
against  deep  January  snows,  the  infant 
elms  began  the  journey  upward  still 
pursued.  There  was  friction,  more  or 
less,  through  those  early  years  between 
their  bodies  as  they  struggled  each  for 
self-development;  but  in  due  course 
of  time  their  close  affiliation,  their  slow 
but  sure  expansion  and  their  intimate 
relationship  resulted  in  the  final  fabri- 
cation and  exchange  of  stout-fibred 
ties,  uniting  them  solidly  at  last  in- 
separably into  one;  the  noble  federated 
trunk  now  holding  high  aloft  a  dozen 
perfect  elms,  with  rare,  wide-spreading 
wealth  of  pendulous  top  and  towering 

[169] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

majesty.  This  great  arboreal  Atlas, 
bearing  upon  its  shaggy  shoulders  a 
leafy  world,  uniquely  graphic  of  col- 
onial beginnings  and  development  into 
the  real  nationalism  of  Daniel  Webster, 
stands,  as  it  should  stand,  upon  Mas- 
sachusetts soil. 

New  England  is  particularly  lovely 
in  the  summer  months.  I  am  not  so 
sure  about  the  winter.  From  Whit- 
tier's  poem,  and  judging  from  the  fore- 
thought manifested  by  the  manner  in 
which  the  farm-steadings — from  parlor 
to  woodshed  and  cattle  stalls — are  con- 
structed under  continuous  (and  usually 
zig-zagging)  roofs,  one  can  imagine 
that  if  Job  had  lived  somewhere  up  in 
the  notches  of  Bretton  Woods  the 
Lord  would  have  omitted  from  his 
"calling  down"  of  the  afflicted  patriarch 
the  pertinent  query,  "Hast  thou  en- 
tered into  the  treasures  of  the  snow?" 

The  Yankees  have  capitalized  fully 
the  charms  of  their  summer-land,  and 
builded  the  broad,  smooth  roads  over 
[170] 


What's  in  a  Name! 


which  the  tourist  gold  gladly  rolls  its 
annual  way  into  their  midst.  It  is  a 
wonderful  playground  for  tired  city 
folk  and  western-bred  people  unfamiliar 
with  its  satisfying  scenarios.  It  is 
rich  in  memories,  and  makes  many  shoe 
buttons.  Every  hamlet  has  its  story 
of  patriotism,  and  its  store  for  supply- 
ing gas  and  oil  at  Mt.  Washington 
prices  to  the  producing  tourist.  It  is 
in  certain  respects  a  finished  country, 
compared  with  California.  The  street 
car  lines  in  and  about  Gloucester,  for 
example,  demonstrate  one  phase  of  this 
condition.  The  cars  have  been  sold, 
and  the  rusting  rails  are  fast  disap- 
pearing in  the  cement  in  which  last 
August's  sun  imbedded  them.  Even 
the  sacred  cod  is  no  longer  its  old- 
time  source  of  cash  and  credit  to  the 
quaint  but  now  decaying  base  of  opera- 
tion against  the  Newfoundland 
"banks." 

Finis  is  a  sad  word  to  affix  to  the 
tale  of  a  once  great  business,  but,  un- 

[171] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

less  something  happens  soon  to  revive 
the  deep-sea  trade,  it  looks  as  if  the 
traditional  baked  potato  might  soon  be 
looking  in  vain  for  its  erstwhile  bone- 
less boon  table  companion.  Nearby, 
on  the  stocks  at  Essex,  may  be  seen 
the  keels  and  ribs  of  a  few  sailing 
vessels  under  slow  construction,  where 
in  the  good  old  days  great  "clippers," 
the  pride  and  glory  of  the  whole  New 
England  coast,  once  had  their  chris- 
tenings. While  the  fine  old  Gloucester 
fleet  is  fast  fading  away,  still  the  docks 
of  these  famous  old-time  fishing  towns 
are  not  yet  wholly  abandoned.  In  fact, 
the  cod-curing  plants  are  still  extensive, 
and  at  times  active.  The  clam-diggers 
and  tenders  of  lobster  traps  still  ply 
their  trade,  but  pessimism  seems 
chronic  in  a  good  part  of  New  England ; 
farmers  competing  with  fishermen  in 
bewailing  the  evil  days  which  they 
claim  have  fallen  upon  them. 

The  Yankee  himself  hasn't  much  to 
work  with.     The  sea  is  more  productive 
[172] 


"What's  in  a 


to  him  than  the  soil;  but  he  certainly 
has  a  genius  for  assembling,  manu- 
facturing and  distributing  merchandise. 
He  can  get  nothing  much  out  of  Mount 
Monadnock,  but  just  watch  him  make 
and  sell  mouse  traps!  There  is  not  a 
great  deal  to  be  had  from  a  sterile, 
stony  soil,  covered  with  scrubby  brush 
and  straggling  second  growths,  save 
blueberries;  but  observe  him  harness 
that  brown  water  down  there  in  the 
stream,  and  grind  out  toothpicks. 
What  the  village  Edison  has  done  in 
a  thousand  ingenious  ways  for  the  re- 
moter nooks  and  corners  of  this  re- 
sourceful land  farsighted  financiers 
have  wrought  upon  a  prodigious  scale 
in  the  Lowells,  Lawrences  and  Lynns 
of  a  densely-populated  territory. 
Everything  known  in  manufacturing 
and  merchandising,  from  watches  to 
worsteds,  from  shoes  to  ships,  from 
earrings  to  engines,  is  on  the  list  of 
New  England's  inexhaustible  line  of 
"notions,"  luxuries  and  necessities. 

[i73l 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

They  have  no  metals,  but  that  doesn't 
matter.  They  go  and  get  them.  They 
might  grow  wool  upon  their  fallow  hills 
and  mountain  slopes,  but  they  prefer 
to  lay  Australia  and  the  west  under 
tribute.  They  have  no  hides,  but  they 
know  where  they  are  to  be  had,  and 
behold  the  leather!  They  produce  no 
meat  to  speak  of,  but  pay  the  cornbelt 
for  it  in  fish-hooks  and  underwear. 

There  are  localities  still  where  farm- 
ing as  a  business  yet  exists,  and  good 
farming  it  is,  too,  in  many  instances; 
but  along  the  beaten  trails  you  get 
more  scenery  and  thrills  than  real 
knowledge  of  what  New  England  agri- 
culture is  capable  of  under  scientific 
handling.  "Through  fields  of  clover" 
you  may  still  "ride  to  Dover,"  if  you 
approach  it  along  the  right  road,  and 
if  you  get  far  enough  back  from  the 
main  highway  you  will  have  a  chance 
now  and  then  to  work  your  Klaxon  on 
"Old  Dobbin"  and  "the  shay."  Hamm 
the  tailor,  and  Boucher  the  barber,  are 

[i74] 


What's  in  a  Name? 


also  still  in  business  there;    at  least 
their  signs  so  indicate. 

Wonderful  old  New  England,  nar- 
row, provincial,  self-centered,  with  all 
your  faults  and  follies  we  love  you  just 
the  same.  In  resisting  tyranny,  in  ex- 
ploiting the  Seven  Seas,  in  defending 
your  own  integrity  and  the  national 
authority,  you  have  not  only  made 
yourself  great,  but  thrown  millions 
into  the  laps  of  distant  states  and  ter- 
ritories, enriched  the  world  of  science, 
art  and  literature,  and  remain  now,  as 
of  yore,  a  prime  factor  in  a  new  nation's 
destiny.  The  only  trouble  is  in  the 
borrowed  name  you  wear.  There  is 
nothing  English  about  you.  You  are 
American  to  the  core.  If  you  don't 
believe  it,  go  visit  Calvin  Coolidge  or 
Cape  Cod. 


XIII 

The  Call  of  the  Unknown 

WHAT  is  the  fascination  of  a  dis- 
tant prospect?  And  then,  after 
you  have  traversed  the  space  that  lies 
in  between,  what  is  the  still  more  com- 
pelling call  of  the  old  haunts?  Any 
number  of  young  folk  on  the  farm  will 
eagerly  answer  the  first  of  these  ques- 
tions and  with  perfect  assurance. 
And,  if  you  will  then  wait  for  about 
forty  years,  you  might  put  again  the 
second  of  these  queries. 

Man  is  the  only  animal  that  fails  to 
"stay  put"  where  he  was  born  and 
bred.  Eden  is,  of  course,  the  spot  of 
your  nativity,  but  we  all  hear  and 
hearken  to  the  call  of  the  eternal  snake, 
and  set  out  on  our  wanderings  through 
the  wilderness.  The  so-called  inferior 

[177] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

animals  are  a  sane  and  satisfied  lot. 
Certain  birds  of  the  air  and  fishes  of 
the  sea  have  one  ground  for  mating 
and  starting  their  young  in  life,  and 
another,  far  away,  for  some  other  pur- 
pose best  known  to  themselves;  but 
this  is  a  shuttle  proposition — just  for- 
ward and  backward  along  well-estab- 
lished lines.  The  purple  martin  nests 
in  the  north,  and  winters  in  Central 
America.  It  never  occurs  to  him  to 
try  for  something  better,  or  at  least 
different,  in  other  corners  of  the  earth. 
The  sea  turtle  swims  to  some  distant 
sandy  shore  to  plant  her  eggs,  and  re- 
turns to  her  accustomed  waters.  The 
elephant  has  never  even  considered 
the  question  of  a  trunk  line  from  Cairo 
to  Capetown,  but  is  content  always 
with  his  own  deep  jungle  trail.  In  the 
classic  case  of  Christopher  Columbus, 
however,  we  find  reflected  the  restless, 
roving  spirit  that  lurks  ever  in  the 
human  brain.  Those  caravels  are  com- 
monly credited  with  having  conferred 

[178] 


The  Call  of  the  Unknown 

an  inestimable  blessing  upon  the  world, 
but  don't  forget  that  this  credit  is 
accorded  only  by  that  comparatively 
small  percentage  of  the  animal  creation 
that  happens  to  possess  both  human 
form  and  a  white  skin.  Ask  the  myr- 
iad ghosts  of  vanished  races,  placed 
in  this  so-called  New  World  in  the 
primeval  assignment  of  territory,  and 
you  will  be  told  that  the  discovery  of 
America  was  a  catastrophe,  having  no 
parallel  in  history.  There  were  at 
least  two  Wild  Pigeons  saved  from  the 
flood,  but  not  one  out  of  millions  has 
survived  the  white  man's  subjugation 
of  this  continent.  Yes,  it  was  a  fine 
stroke  of  business  for  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  I  suppose,  but  even  they  were 
finally  beaten  to  all  that  was  best  over 
here  by  other  creatures  of  their  own 
species,  possessed  of  superior  enter- 
prise, persistence  and  cunning.  First, 
men  despoil  a  far  country  of  its  in- 
digenous life,  and  then  fight  among 
themselves  for  the  right  to  exploit  it 

[i79] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

to  its  last  resource,  each  for  his  own 
benefit. 

A  friend  of  mine,  who  had  his  health 
shattered  by  twenty-five  years'  con- 
finement behind  steel  bars  of  his  own 
making,  bought  a  little  place  near 
Dumbiedykes  the  other  day.  You  can 
hardly  see  into  his  enclosure,  so  thick 
are  the  native  forest  trees  still  growing 
round  about  the  house.  He  has  crawled 
back  deep  into  the  woods;  in  other 
words,  just  as  a  caribou  would  do  when 
very  sick  or  badly  wounded,  there  to 
philosophize  upon  his  past  life  and 
incidentally,  perhaps,  give  nature  a 
chance  to  restore  ebbing  strength  with 
the  balm  that  exudes  from  every  leafy 
Gilead,  whether  in  the  Holy  Land  or 
the  mountains  of  North  Carolina. 
Holy  Land,  did  I  say?  All  land  is 
holy,  wherever  it  is,  but  some  people 
don't  seem  to  find  this  out  until  they 
have  first  exhausted  city  pavements. 

I  caught  my  friend  yesterday  evening 
studying  the  western  horizon  at  sun- 
[180] 


The  Call  of  the  Unknown 

set.  Not  that  there  is  anything  par- 
ticularly criminal  in  that  form  of  occu- 
pation; but  you  know  we  practical 
folk  have  a  way  of  sneering  sometimes 
at  the  fellow  who  can  see  anything 
worth  a  second  look  in  the  plunging 
of  a  great  globe  of  fire  through  cloud- 
belts  into  the  dark  unknown. 

It  is  a  pleasing  prospect  that  lies 
between  our  doors  and  the  far-away 
place  where  fresh  pictures  are  painted 
every  evening.  Rolling  grass-lands, 
wide  open  spaces  between  little  groups 
of  friendly  trees — maple,  willows,  oaks ; 
in  the  foreground  a  bit  of  water  with 
a  foot-bridge;  and,  at  the  edge  of  our 
little  world,  low  hills  covered  with 
forest  growths.  We  can  see,  and  we 
know  all  about  everything  that  has 
place  in  the  nearer  view,  but,  "hang  it 
all,"  remarks  my  friend  that  Carnegie 
trained  beneath  Bessemer  fires,  "what 
is  there  about  those  woodlands  we  can 
see  away  out  there  in  the  west  that 
invariably  catches  my  eye,  and  excites 


New  Walks  in  ,0ld  Ways 

a  curiosity  in  my  mind  that  I  myself 
can't  quite  understand?" 

"Ever  been  over  there?"  I  inquired. 

"No,"  says  he,  "but  I  am  going 
come  day." 

There  you  are  again.  The  lure  of 
latitude  and  longitude!  Ever  the  un- 
satisfied longing  for  that  which  is 
somewhere  else. 

"There  is  something  about  it,  I  sup- 
pose," I  venture  to  suggest,  "that 
kindles  your  imagination." 

"Evidently  there  is,"  he  said,  "but 
I  never  knew  before  that  I  had  any 
imagination." 

Thus  another  soul  gives  testimony 
to  the  universal  human  wanderlust. 
To  be  sure,  the  Eden  in  which  he  and 
I  spend  our  vacation  days  has  within  it- 
self every  attraction  that  can  possibly 
be  found  when  he  makes  that  little 
journey  to  the  sunset  ridge.  In  fact, 
after  he  has  tramped  about  those  stiff 
clay  hills  he  will  just  as  surely  sense 
the  call  of  the  vine  and  fig  tree  he  has 
[182! 


The  Call  of  the  Unknown 

left  behind,  and  be  satisfied  to  seek 
again  the  spot  from  whence  he  first 
saw  the  distant  El  Dorado  glowing  in 
the  golden  glories  of  a  dying  summer 
day. 

His  subconscious  thought  had  been 
of  course  that  within  those  mysterious 
depths  there  must  be  something  he 
would  like  to  have,  the  world-old 
human  thought  that  something  that 
would  in  some  way  profit  him  must  be 
lurking  there,  and  could  be  reduced  to 
his  own  possession.  In  the  days  of 
his  millionth  grandfather,  when  men 
had  to  range  far  afield  for  meat  and 
drink  or  booty  with  which  to  deck  their 
huts  or  caves,  it  would  be  red  deer  or 
crystal  springs  or  gold,  or  the  head  of 
a  hated  enemy,  that  would  have 
tempted.  No  need  of  that  in  this 
present  case,  of  course;  but  the  primal 
instinct  is  latent  still  in  all  of  us,  and 
only  waits  the  hour  of  its  awakening. 
My  friend  will  find  no  venison  in  those 
hills,  nor  flowing  fountains.  There  is 

[183] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

neither  iron  for  spearheads  nor  scalps 
to  be  brought  home  now  in  triumph. 
But  he  will  have  obeyed  the  impulse, 
that  cannot  be  resisted  now  any  more 
than  it  was  by  his  red  predecessor  who 
lived,  as  he  now  does,  in  Midlothian 
wood.  Thus  do  we  all  confess  the 
nomadic  past. 

Once  upon  a  time  a  sturdy  Virginian, 
born  somewhere  along  the  river  Rappa- 
hannock,  took  unto  himself  for  mate 
one  of  the  fairest  of  the  Valley's  maids. 
Tradition  described  her  as  gentle  of 
birth  and  speech,  sweet-tempered  and 
refined,  fitted  in  her  early  bloom  by  all 
the  endowments  of  inherited  beauty  of 
mind  and  body  to  grace  the  highest 
Old  Dominion  circles.  I  can  person- 
ally vouch  for  her  beautiful  traits  of 
heart  and  mind,  for  as  a  little  child  I 
was  fortunate  enough  to  discover  her 
irresistible  charm,  and  discern  her  men- 
tal grace.  The  first  letter  I  ever 
penned  was  addressed  to  her  (in  red 
ink  at  that),  and  a  long  correspondence 
[184] 


The  Call  of  the  Unknown 

ensued,  continuing  all  through  my 
youthful  years.  But  I  am  ahead  of 
my  story. 

The  British  had  just  relinquished, 
at  the  point  of  colonial  bayonets,  the 
soil  which  they  themselves  had  wrested 
from  the  French  and  Indians;  and 
round  the  evening  fire  strange  tales 
were  told  of  wondrous  lands  and  fame 
and  fortune  awaiting  those  who  had 
the  courage  to  cross  the  mountains 
and  breast  the  hardships  of  pioneer 
existence.  For,  in  the  distant  west, 
beyond  the  great  blue  domes  of  the 
Appalachian  ranges,  lay  Kentucky  and 
the  broad  Ohio.  The  "savages"  had 
been  coaxed,  cajoled,  beaten,  bought 
or  driven  out  of  their  own  great  in- 
heritance, and  with  them  sank  the 
power  of  France.  A  Government,  in 
grateful  recognition  of  the  services  of 
soldiers  of  the  Revolution,  made  gen- 
erous grants  of  some  of  the  richest 
lands  in  the  world,  and  the  race  was 
on.  The  magnet  beyond  the  Blue 

[  185  ] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

Ridge  was  pulling  hard  upon  the  ele- 
mental impulse,  and  it  drew  heavily 
upon  the  flower  of  old  Virginia's  stock. 
Some  went  on  to  great  riches  and  re- 
wards, enjoyed  to  this  day  by  their 
descendants.  Others  fell  victims  to 
the  stress  and  exposure  attending  the 
crude  migration;  and  still  more  of 
them,  spurred  on  by  the  goading  of 
this  same  insatiable  thirst  for  gain  and 
adventure  of  which  I  am  speaking,  never 
attached  themselves  long  enough  in 
any  one  spot  to  really  take  root  and  get 
a  start.  Ever  they  were  hearing  voices 
in  the  air!  Ever  did  they  watch  the 
sun  setting  still  further  west,  and  on 
the  morrow  they  were  on  the  trail  for 
"over  there." 

Spring  was  stealing  softly  north- 
ward from  the  southland  when  the 
particular  Virginian  of  whom  I  write 
took  the  bridle  path  for  the  Promised 
Land.  In  fancy  we  can  see  the  scene. 
The  peach  tree  bloom  had  already 
come  and  gone  in  sunny  nooks,  and 
[i861 


The  Call  of  the  Unknown 

apple  blossoms  shed  their  snowy  fra- 
grance. The  orioles  and  tanagers  were 
singing  of  an  earth  re-born,  as  the 
young  wife  said  a  tearful  farewell  to 
her  Shenandoah  home;  drawn  into  the 
maelstrom  of  one  of  the  most  sig- 
nificant of  all  human  migrations  in 
our  country's  history.  All  her  accus- 
tomed comforts  left  behind  forever; 
for  in  her  case  these  were  never  to  be 
quite  regained.  She  did  not  know  that 
this  was  to  be  her  fate.  She  had  youth 
and  hope  and  faith,  and  a  Good  Book 
I  have  often  seen  went  with  her  into 
the  western  wilds.  And  she  could  ride 
with  any  man  where  sound-limbed 
Virginia  mounts  could  climb. 

I  have  stood  upon  the  old  Indian 
trail  over  which  they  and  countless 
others  passed  in  their  great  adventure, 
at  the  point  where  they  rested  for  the 
night,  where  now  "The  Greenbriar" 
in  all  its  beauty  ministers  in  modern 
state  to  those  who  know  White  Sul- 
phur Springs.  A  monument  here  fit- 

[187] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

tingly  commemorates  the  flowing  of 
that  human  tide.  On  and  on,  still 
further  on,  they  passed,  till  presently 
the  valley  of  Kentucky,  in  all  its 
dreamy  beauty,  opened  far  below. 
The  axe  and  plow  were  soon  at  work, 
and  another  little  home  had  come  into 
existence,  but  not  for  long.  The  Ohio 
River's  current  called.  Beyond  its 
channel  lay  another  Paradise!  The 
spirit  of  unrest  would  not  be  stilled 
in  the  young  man's  heart.  Children 
had  come  to  share  whatever  might 
betide,  and,  against  the  mother's  mild 
but  useless  protest,  a  second  journey 
was  begun.  Surely  something  more 
to  be  desired  was  yet  ahead. 

The  spinning  wheel  was  set  to  work, 
and  deft  fingers  plied  the  loom.  Good 
homespun  garments  came  from  hands 
that  had  been  more  familiar  in  the 
earlier  days  with  embroideries  and 
laces.  Westward!  Northward!  God 
knows  where!  The  river  is  crossed  in 
safety.  The  Miami  reached.  But  not 
[188] 


The  Call  of  the  Unknown 

yet.  "Wait  till  we  see  what  is  still 
beyond."  Golden  opportunities  sacri- 
ficed at  almost  every  turn  of  the  wagon 
wheels!  Next  the  Scioto  and  its  little 
tributaries  must  be  explored. 

Long  years  after  this  hegira,  as  a 
boy  of  twelve,  I  was  part  of  the  impedi- 
menta connected  with  a  memorable  visit 
made  by  my  parents  to  this  second 
pause  in  the  wanderings  I  recount. 
Mill  Creek !  That  was  the  little  stream 
that  coursed  by  home  number  two.  An 
old  covered  wooden  bridge  led  across 
to  the  farm  where  the  Virginia  gypsies 
had  made  another  stand.  Probably  it 
it  there  yet.  I  never  heard  of  one 
wearing  out.  Sound  timbers  and  hon- 
est workmanship  went  into  such  con- 
structions in  the  good  old  times.  Only 
a  few  weeks  ago  I  saw  a  railway  bridge 
of  this  same  old-fashioned  type  still  in 
use  somewhere  in  the  New  Hampshire 
hills. 

Again   the   axe!     Huge   trees   came 
down  to  make  a  clearing  for  the  corn. 
[189] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

These  folk  had  little  use  for  the  open 
country  or  outlying  uplands.  They 
were  woodsmen  and  loved  flowing 
water.  "Log  rollings,"  with  a  handy 
torch  to  consume  the  noble  oaks  and 
hickory,  the  walnut  and  the  beech, 
were  in  their  eyes  an  economic  neces- 
sity. Then  the  "barn-raising"  and  the 
"house-warming;"  followed  later  by 
the  "husking-bees"  where  a  kiss,  by 
fixed  unwritten  law,  was  passed  with 
each  red  ear  uncovered!  The  family 
grew  in  numbers,  but  progressed  not 
especially  in  worldly  goods.  And,  sure 
enough,  the  prairies  of  the  Mississippi 
soon  began  their  mute  appeal.  Night 
after  night  it  was  discussed.  The 
mother  wept,  but  made  no  real  com- 
plaint. She  came  of  a  race  of  good 
soldiers.  One  sad  day  the  deed  was 
signed  that  set  the  father  free  again — 
free  to  chase  once  more  the  western 
horizon. 

Why  dwell  upon  the  toilsome  strug- 
gle over-land?    I  hope  "the  moon  was 
[190] 


The  Call  of  the  Unknown 

fair"  the  night  they  crossed  the  Wa- 
bash,  and  that  the  poor  tired  mother 
and  her  flock,  the  horses  and  the  cows 
that  trailed  along  behind,  and  the 
family  dog  that  lay  under  the  canvas- 
covered  wagon  while  they  slept,  found 
rest  and  strength  renewed  each  time 
they  halted  on  their  way  across 
central  Indiana  and  Illinois.  There 
was  a  place  called  Iowa,  said  to  be 
richer  far  than  all  the  rest.  Not  even 
the  wild  "Father  of  Waters"  at  its 
flood  could  set  bounds  to  this  iron- 
hearted  farmer  of  the  Rappahannock. 
The  mother's  heart  was  breaking,  but 
what  of  that?  Grand  grass  and  deep, 
black  soils  were  being  traversed  from 
sun  to  sun,  but  "nothing  doing."  The 
old  whip  cracked,  and  the  wagons 
creaked  and  the  horses  sweat,  and  the 
cattle  lagged,  but  on,  ever  on!  Some 
day  we'll  stop  and  build  another  cabin 
in  a  wood,  if  there  only  be  a  creek 
nearby.  The  dog's  tongue  hung  out, 
but  he  alone  of  all  the  company  was 

[191] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

ever  ready  for  the  road.  So  at  last 
the  broad  prairie  land,  some  five  days' 
pull  beyond  the  Mississippi,  was 
reached,  and,  amidst  a  world  of  wild 
flowers  that  made  the  vernal  earth  a 
garden  of  glowing  beauty,  a  stake  was 
planted.  I  was  born,  in  after  years,  in 
the  log  house  set  upon  that  spot.  My 
father  was  one  of  the  boys  who  made 
the  journeys  from  the  old  Kentucky 
home.  The  lady  of  the  Shenandoah 
was  my  own  grandmother  of  sainted 
memory. 

To  those  who  stood  for  all  my  various 
misdeeds  as  an  average  and  growing 
youngster,  I  owe  a  filial  debt  that, 
unfortunately,  can  now  never  be  re- 
paid. There  are  both  words  and  deeds 
I  would  could  be  recalled.  Like  most 
other  children,  I  suppose  I  did  not  half 
appreciate  my  own  parents,  and  all 
they  did  for  me.  There  breaks  out 
again,  you  see,  the  same  old  human 
fault.  That  which  is  nearest,  and 
with  which  we  are  most  familiar,  sel- 
[192] 


The  Call  of  the  Unknown 

dom  seems  as  satisfying  or  desirable 
as  something  else  the  other  side  the 
hill.  I  never  saw  the  old  Virginian 
whose  vagabondage  I  have  here  briefly 
traced.  He  died  before  my  time.  Had 
he  lived  long  enough  I  have  not  a 
doubt  but  that  he  would  have  wound 
up  somewhere  around  San  Francisco 
Bay,  and  then  been  sore  because  he 
could  not  head  overland  for  China. 
He  was  a  Romany,  sure  enough,  and 
when  I  go  down  the  road  alone,  as  I  so 
often  do,  as  referred  to  elsewhere  in 
these  rambling  records  I  "reckon"  (to 
use  a  good  old  southern  expression) 
that  he  lives  just  a  little  bit  in  me 
again. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  I  cling  with  a 
feeling  I  can't  resist  to  the  fine  gold 
of  the  grandmother  on  the  paternal 
side,  of  whom  I  have  spoken  at  such 
length.  Maybe  I  am  too  partial  to 
her,  but  I  am  proud  to  be  of  her 
blood,  even  if  only  twenty-five  per- 
cent. If  there  is  that  small  proportion 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

of  real  good  in  me,  as  against  seventy- 
five  percent  potentially  or  actually  bad, 
it  surely  came  from  her.  A  martyr 
to  the  cause  of  settling  the  western 
wilderness,  she  uttered  no  word  of 
reproach,  but  let  her  sweet,  refining 
light  shine  all  about  her  to  the  end. 
And  there  were  others  like  her;  others 
of  whom  similar  stories  could  easily 
be  written.  So  let  this  passing  refer- 
ence serve  as  an  humble  tribute  to  a 
noble  type  now  gone  still  further  on 
beyond  the  sunset  gates! 


XIV 

An  "Indian  Summer"  Dream 

Brown  autumn  brings  beauty  to  By-Way  Land 
There  is  mist  on  the  distant  hills; 
There  is  mystery  brooding  o'er  forest  and  field, 
And  down  'mongst  the  corn-shocks  on  sharp, 

frosty  nights 
There  are  shadowy  figures  and  many  strange 

sights 
To  be  seen  in  the  moonlight  of  By-Way  Land. 

JOHN  McCUTCHEON'S  great  car- 
toon places  the  artist  at  once  in  the 
front  rank  of  distinctively  American 
poets.  It  gives  vivid  expression  to 
thoughts  that  have  come  to  thousands 
who  know  and  love  Longfellow's 
"Blessing  of  the  Corn  Fields,"  and 
realizes  the  visions  of  boys  who  have 
heard  and  seen  strange  things  late 
autumn  nights  when  "the  frost  is  on 

[i95l 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

the  pumpkin"  and  the  grain  is  "in  the 
shock." 

There  is  no  reasonable  doubt  about 
it.  The  spirits  of  the  Red  Men  do 
begin  skulking  stealthily  in  and  out 
among  the  trees  that  skirt  the  edges 
of  a  cornfield  just  as  soon  as  the  leaves 
turn  brown  and  the  soft  blue  haze 
appears  on  distant  hills.  I  have  thought 
sometimes  I  saw  them  out  on  the  open 
prairie  lands  where  so  much  of  the 
maize  of  commerce  is  now  grown,  but 
was  never  quite  certain  as  to  that.  If 
you  would  make  really  sure  of  seeing 
them  you  must  choose  a  field  that  has 
been  cleared  from  what  was  once  virgin 
forests,  or  one  that  is  bordered  by 
native  timber  still  standing.  Come 
with  me  into  Indiana,  Ohio,  Kentucky 
or  Old  Virginia,  and  I  will  find  you 
many  such. 

It  is  where  the  lodges  were  pitched, 
where  bears  and  wolves  and  deer,  wild 
turkeys  and  wood  pigeons  had  posses- 
sion; it  is  where  squaws  once  planted 
[196] 


An  "Indian  Summer"  Dream 

and  harvested  the  corn,  while  the 
braves  were  hunting  game  for  winter 
stores,  that  the  ghosts  of  the  vanished 
races  always  come  when  the  evening 
shadows  fall.  It  is  in  the  midst  of 
such  environment  that  the  mysterious, 
elusive  shapes  appear.  The  rustling 
of  the  oak  leaves  and  the  drying  corn 
blades,  as  the  night  breeze  passes,  will 
always  start  them  from  their  silent 
places  after  there  has  been  a  heavy 
frost.  Personally,  I  will  testify  that  I 
never  saw  an  Indian  until  the  nuts 
were  falling  in  the  woods,  and  the  tips 
of  the  white  and  red  and  yellow  ears 
protruded  from  the  husks;  so  I  have 
come  to  understand  that  the  shadowy 
people  of  the  Indian  Summer  nights 
are  real  children  of  the  harvest,  and 
that  in  some  way — known  only  to  old 
Mother  Earth  herself,  and  to  the  golden 
sun,  the  moon  and  stars,  the  lightnings 
and  the  frosts — these  spirits  are  re- 
leased from  bondage  only  when  a 
certain  cycle  is  complete.  Hence  I 

[i97] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

always  waited  with  an  interest  and  a 
curiosity  quite  irrepressible  the  first 
premonitory  signs. 

One  thing  I  know  is  true:  wherever 
the  walnuts  and  the  beech,  the  chest- 
nut and  the  hickories  are  most  abund- 
ant, and  wherever  the  corn  is  heaviest, 
there  you  are  most  certain  to  see  the 
red  folk  of  the  mists  at  their  various 
tasks  or  different  weird  rites.  Along 
a  little  river  that  once  ran  between 
two  wooded  banks,  just  as  in  the  days 
of  Pontiac,  past  one  particular  bottom 
field,  I  have  often  seen  near  the  farther 
shore  the  dim  outlines  of  long  canoes, 
propelled  by  dusky  paddlers,  swiftly 
on  their  noiseless  way.  I  always 
wished  I  had  the  courage  to  hail  or 
halt  these  apparitions  of  the  night,  and 
ask  them  to  reveal  their  field  and  forest 
secrets,  but  usually  some  night  bird 
would  sound  an  eerie  warning  cry,  just 
at  the  wrong  instant,  and  my  oppor- 
tunity was  gone.  Besides,  they  were 
never  really  quite  near  enough.  In- 
[198] 


An  "Indian  Summer"  Dream 

deed,  I  always  found  that  they  were 
moving  onward,  ever  onward,  towards 
some  goal  unknown. 

Once  upon  a  time  a  few  of  us  re- 
solved upon  a  real  adventure  in  this 
quest.  We  would  build  a  bonfire,  and, 
wrapped  in  blankets,  spend  the  night 
upon  the  crest  of  a  wooded  ridge  that 
overlooked  the  haunted  stream  and 
cornfields  down  below.  Maybe  we 
should  discover  something.  Maybe 
great  things  would  happen.  Maybe 
our  flaming  signal  would  be  seen  and 
answered.  It  might  be  that  we  should 
all  be  captured  and  carried  into  cap- 
tivity far  away.  It  might  be  that  bears 
or  catamounts  would  eat  us  up!  But 
the  blood  of  hardy  pioneers  was  in  our 
veins,  and  would  not  let  us  rest  until 
the  great  proposal  had  been  carried  out. 

The  darker  the  night  we  thought  the 
better  for  our  purpose,  and  if  the  air 
were  keen  and  nipping  we  had  all  the 
more  chance  of  starting  something;  so 
up  the  hill  the  little  band  of  scouts 

[199] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

marched  valiantly  to  the  test.  Soon 
the  objective  point  was  reached,  and  it 
did  not  take  boys  very  long  to  plan  a 
primitive  camp.  Dry  logs  were  plenty, 
and  by  the  time  the  evening  glow  had 
gone  all  was  in  readiness.  Against  big 
rocks  the  camp  fire  soon  was  blazing 
merrily,  the  magic  circle  formed,  and 
the  vigil  was  begun. 

We  were  all  familiar  enough  with  the 
old  yellow-backed  dime  novels  of  that 
day,  with  their  hairbreadth  escapes  of 
the  early  settlers,  of  Daniel  Boone  and 
Simon  Kenton  and  the  rest,  to  tell 
stories  calculated  to  frighten  anyone 
half  out  of  his  boots,  even  under 
ordinary  conditions;  and  I  am  sure  I 
would  have  been  quite  willing  to  re- 
nounce the  enterprise  after  an  hour  of 
this,  if  anyone  else  had  suggested  it, 
but  no  one  did.  So  we  watched  and 
talked  and  listened  and  waited  for  a 
long,  long  time. 

Night  hawks  and  whip-poor-wills 
and  bats  and  owls  sound  all  right  when 
[200] 


An  "Indian  Summer"  Dream 

you  are  a  boy,  and  safe  and  snug  inside 
the  house,  but  somehow  in  those  woods 
that  night  they  were  uncomfortably 
close  at  times  and  busy,  and  by  and 
by  two  great  big  yellow  eyes  peered  at 
us  out  of  the  blackness  of  a  thicket. 
Maybe  it  was  Reynard,  the  fox.  We 
knew  he  lived  up  there  somewhere, 
but  whoever  or  whatever  it  was  turned 
tail  quickly  enough  when  we  shouted, 
and  we  heard  him  beat  a  quick  retreat. 
It  was  not  long  then,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  before  we  all  began  seeing 
things  in  the  outer  edges  of  the  fire- 
light; nothing  definite,  to  be  sure,  but 
fantastic  shapes  that  disappeared  as 
quickly  as  they  came.  Then  came  a 
call  from  old  Brer  Skunk.  There  was 
no  mistaking  his  identity,  but  he  was 
too  familiar  a  friend  to  excite  particular 
comment.  But  still  no  Indians!  By 
and  by  the  Sandman  came,  and  one 
by  one,  as  the  fire  burned  lower  and 
lower,  we  must  have  drifted  quite  un- 
consciously into  Dreamland.  My 
[201] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

companions  of  this  camp  have  always 
declared  that  nothing,  absolutely  noth- 
ing, was  seen  or  heard  that  even 
hinted  of  Indian  spirits  through  all 
that  livelong  night,  but  I  know  better. 
It  was  somewhere  in  the  early  morn- 
ing hours  when  I  suddenly  realized 
that  something  big  was  brewing  in  the 
gloom.  I  found  myself  sitting  up- 
right, gazing  intently  into  space.  The 
embers  all  were  ashes  now,  and  the  one 
thing  that  fixed  and  held  my  thoughts 
was  the  brightest,  biggest  star  I  had 
ever  seen,  shining  like  some  great  head- 
light low  in  the  eastern  sky.  There 
was  just  a  suspicion  of  the  coming  dawn 
in  a  faint  gray  tint  below  the  glowing 
planet.  Its  radiation  was  sufficient  to 
cast  a  wavering  glow  upon  the  river, 
fields  and  in  the  woodland  spaces. 
And  then,  strangest  of  all  strange 
things  that  ever  came  to  me  in  all  my 
life;  believe  or  disbelieve  all  ye  who 
listen  to  my  camp-fire  tale,  as  you  may 
please,  I  swear  to  you  that  there  before 
[202! 


An  "Indian  Summer"  Dream 

my  startled  gaze  appeared  at  least  a 
million  Indians,  plainly  approaching  the 
sleeping  camp!  That  may  sound  an 
extravagant  statement,  but,  writing 
seriously  and  after  the  lapse  of  many 
years,  I  will  say  that  this  is  a  very 
conservative  statement  as  to  the  im- 
pression made  upon  my  mind  at  the 
time  the  event  occurred. 

My  first  impulse  was  to  arouse  the 
other  boys  that  they  might  see  the 
spectacle,  and  participate  with  open 
eyes  in  whatever  fate  impended,  but, 
to  my  astonishment,  I  could  not  speak. 
I  know  I  tried,  but  only  inarticulate 
sounds  escaped  my  lips.  Moreover,  I 
found  I  could  not  move;  so  transfixed 
was  I  with  terror.  Mute  and  motion- 
less I  sat  as  the  Indians  closed  in  upon 
me.  Some  were  in  war  paint;  the 
traditional  eagle  feathers  were  every- 
where in  evidence.  Bows,  arrows, 
tomahawks,  war  clubs,  knives  and 
native  drums  revealed  that  some  at 
least  were  on  the  warpath;  still  there 
[203] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

were  whole  tribes  in  peaceful  garb,  old 
men,  women  and  children,  wrapped  in 
blankets  and  shod  in  moccasins  that 
gave  no  sound  as  they  pressed  up  the 
incline  to  the  camp.  That  was  not 
the  worst  of  it.  The  redskins  were 
bringing  with  them  all  their  friends  of 
earth  and  air! 

I  have  often  been  impressed  by 
pictures  of  old  Noah  leading  all  the 
animals  up  into  the  ark,  and  never 
could  quite  understand  how  it  was  all 
managed,  from  mastodons  to  microbes. 
I  had  also  seen  pictures  of  impossible 
herds  of  buffalo  roaming  the  western 
plains;  so  I  had  a  fairly  adequate  idea 
of  how  large  bodies  of  quadrupeds 
would  look,  but,  along  with  all  the 
Indians  that  ever  lived  in  North 
America,  by  which  our  camp  was  now 
hopelessly  surrounded,  were  massed 
more  beasts  than  I  had  ever  supposed 
existed  in  all  the  continents  combined! 

Bison  by  the  acre!  Bears — grizzly, 
brown  and  black — by  the  billion !  Wild 
[204] 


An  "Indian  Summer"  Dream 

cats  without  number!  Wolves  of  the 
forest  and  wolves  of  the  prairie! 
Beavers,  badgers,  raccoons,  porcupines ! 
Deer,  red,  white  and  spotted,  in  droves 
unheard  of;  and  squirrels  and  rabbits! 
Trillions!  And  listen! 

Suddenly  the  whir  of  ten  hundred 
thousand  wings.  The  sky  was  one 
black  mass  of  feathered  things — all 
circling  overhead  above  the  doomed 
camp.  The  stars  could  not  be  seen 
because  of  the  aerial  mass;  not  even 
the  great  planet  that  had  hung  so 
gorgeously  upon  the  eastern  horizon. 
Every  kind  of  land  and  water  fowl  of 
which  anyone  had  ever  heard  or 
dreamed — and  more — was  crowding, 
calling,  screaming,  settling  lower  and 
lower  towards  the  forest,  field  and 
river,  with  the  camp,  our  poor  little 
unprotected  camp,  as  the  evident 
center  of  their  interest.  I  knew  that 
great  Bald  eagles  had  been  known  to 
carry  children  off  in  their  terrible 
talons,  just  as  fishhawks  fly  away  with 
[205] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

their  bleeding  victims,  snatched  from 
shallow  waters.  And  those  horrible 
vultures!  And  big,  black  turkey  buz- 
ards! 

How  long  had  this  gathering  of  all 
the  wild  creatures  of  the  earth  and  sky 
to  be  endured  ?  How  long  was  it  to  be 
before  they  claimed  their  easy  prey? 
Only  a  matter  of  minutes  surely.  Why 
had  we  ever  tried  to  tempt  the  spirits 
of  the  wilderness  of  which  the  whites 
now  had  possession?  Why  had  we 
not  been  satisfied  with  just  imagining, 
or  watching  from  the  safe  shelter  of 
our  own  dooryards  or  the  pastures  near 
the  old  red  barn,  within  easy  running 
distance  of  the  house?  Fools  that  we 
were!  We  might  have  known  better 
than  to  walk  deliberately  into  such  a 
trap.  I  knew  now  just  how  that  wood- 
chuck  felt  the  other  day  when  I  went 
to  get  him  out  of  the  snare  I  had  set 
for  him.  He  stood  just  as  much  chance 
of  getting  away  alive  as  I  did  here  in 
the  center  of  this  awful  aggregation, 
[206! 


An  "Indian  Summer"  Dream 

bent  clearly  upon  my  own  destruction. 
These  and  a  thousand  other  self- 
accusing  thoughts  flashed  through  my 
brain  as  I  felt  the  end  coming  closer, 
ever  closer! 

After  the  lapse  of  a  near-eternity,  I 
became  conscious  of  the  fact  that  some- 
one was  speaking,  and  a  great  hush 
came  over  the  assembling  multitudes. 
The  Star  of  Morning  still  glowed  in 
golden  splendor,  and,  just  as  the  first 
faint  signs  of  approaching  dawn  were 
becoming  visible  to  experienced  eyes, 
an  aged  chieftain  in  the  foremost  rank 
of  Red  Men,  stepping  forward,  pros- 
trated himself  towards  the  east.  With 
uplifted  arms,  he  began  what  seemed 
an  invocation  to  some  Higher  Power, 
and,  as  he  ceased,  a  great  hymn  of 
supplication  rose  and  fell  in  swelling 
cadence  through  the  stillness  of  the 
dying  night. 

The  very  air  was  vibrant  with  re- 
pressed excitement  and  expectation, 
and  still  my  comrades  slept  on,  all  un- 
[207] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

conscious  of  the  dramatic  scene  of 
which  I  was  apparently  the  only  out- 
side witness.  Again  the  voice: 

"The  star  so  hotly  pressed  by  the 
rising  sun  already  pales,  and  with  him 
faint  and  fall  we  all.  Before  the  Fire- 
God  wakes  we  must  be  gone.  Back 
to  the  far-off  hills  and  dales  from 
whence  we  came.  Back  to  the  crags 
and  canyons,  the  marshes  and  the 
meadows  of  the  Land  that  is  not  in 
Earth  nor  Air  nor  Sky!  Land  that  is 
neither  substance  nor  yet  shadow! 
Land  unseen!  Unknown  to  all  save 
we  alone!  Haste!  For  the  Morning 
breaks!" 

I  had  no  means,  of  course,  of  know- 
ing what  this  was  all  about,  or  what 
was  to  happen  next,  but  I  was  sure 
that  it  was  me  they  were  after.  I 
had  long  since  lost  the  power  of  loco- 
motion, and  there  was  nothing  to  do 
but  watch  in  white  terror,  and  await 
the  finish. 

On  signal  from  the  chief,  a  group  of 
[208] 


An  "Indian  Summer"  Dream 

braves  arose  and  disappeared  noise- 
lessly in  the  gloomy  depths  of  the  for- 
est. The  shrill  barking  of  wolves  or 
coyotes  somewhere  in  the  distance 
soon  added  little  to  my  comfort.  In 
fact,  it  required  but  a  moment  to 
comprehend  that  they  were  headed 
camp-ward.  Louder  and  louder  re- 
sounded the  howling  of  the  hungry 
pack,  as  they  tore  their  savage  way 
through  thickets  or  open  glades.  They 
were  being  sent  to  eat  me  alive! 
There  was  no  longer  any  doubt  as  to 
the  finish!  I  tried  to  yell,  but  couldn't! 
Nearer  and  nearer  came  the  snarling 
crew!  I  could  plainly  hear  the  snap- 
ping of  dead  twigs  and  the  rattle  of  dry 
leaves  that  told  of  their  close  approach ! 
And  here  they  are!  Gray  wolves,  white 
wolves,  black  wolves;  big  wolves, 
devilish-looking  little  wolves,  and  coy- 
otes galore  hard  on  their  trail!  I 
could  see  the  staring,  famished  eyes, 
the  sharp  white  fangs;  and  closed  my 
eyes  upon  the  furious  furry  avalanche! 

[209] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

And  even  as  I  then  resigned  myself 
to  fate,  I  heard  the  voice  again,  and, 
suddenly,  instead  of  ravening  beasts  at 
my  throat,  all  was  again  silent  as  the 
grave.  The  pack  had  vanished! 

A  soft  rustling  as  of  wings  in  motion 
was  now  in  evidence.  No  other  sound 
was  heard,  save  one  of  the  boys  turning 
drowsily  in  his  morning  sleep.  I  could 
sense,  however,  the  certain  approach 
of  some  being  from  the  upper  air;  and 
presently  in  the  dim  distance  I  made 
out  the  on-coming  flight  of  what 
looked  like  the  figure  of  an  Indian 
Princess,  and  as  it  drew  nearer  and 
nearer  I  saw  that  she  was  clad  in 
shining,  fluttering  garments  of  Green 
and  Gold;  and  even  as  I  marveled  at 
the  fascinating  apparition  it  glided 
gracefully  into  our  very  midst!  Forth- 
with the  ghostly  tribes  fell  down  and 
worshiped,  and,  while  still  prone  in 
her  presence,  the  Princess  spoke: 

"Children  of  the  mountain  and  the 
plain!  Children  of  the  forests  and  the 

[210] 


An  "Indian  Summer"  Dream 

dells!  Know  that  I  am  Daughter  of 
the  Sun!  Through  the  misty  morning 
shadows  He  your  prayer  has  heard, 
and  answered.  Hither  has  He  sent  me, 
and  from  hence  I  may  not  go.  Naught 
that  has  once  touched  Earth  can  e'er 
return  to  starry  realms  till  Heaven  it- 
self ordains!  Whether  I  come  to  you 
and  yours  as  curse  or  blessing  know  I 
not.  But  this  one  thing  is  certain  as 
the  rosy  hue  of  Morn:  I  am  here  to 
live  with  you,  for  better  or  for  worse, 
for  good  or  for  evil,  to  abide  forever 
more,  exchanging  home  ethereal  on 
high,  to  plant  my  feet  on  this  your 
solid  Earth.  Your  women  and  your 
maidens  shall  attend  upon  me,  and 
faithfully  shall  I  reward.  When  fails 
the  hunting,  then  shall  I  sustain  and 
comfort  thee." 

Then  all  was  still  once  more,  and  the 
wondrous  picture  of  the  night  began 
rapidly  to  dissolve  and  fade  far,  far 
away.  Next  thing  I  knew  a  mighty 
conflagration  was  raging  all  around, 
[211] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

and  familiar  human  voices  fell  again 
upon  my  ears.  The  morning  sun  was 
shining  squarely  in  my  sleepy  eyes, 
and  my  companions  of  the  camp  were 
getting  breakfast.  That  was  all.  I 
was  awake. 

As  we  passed  the  cornfield  going 
home,  I  saw  and  understood.  The 
Princess  Green-and-Gold  stood  with 
her  feet  deep  in  the  rich  soft  earth,  and 
her  arms  were  filled  with  plenty.  At 
first  a  blessing  to  the  Indian  race,  sav- 
ing the  villages  through  many  a  hard 
and  cruel  winter  from  the  wolves  of 
famine,  the  desire  of  white  men  to  pos- 
sess the  rich  lands  over  which  she  ruled 
became  a  primal  factor  in  the  final  evic- 
tion of  the  savage  tribes,  and  with  them 
passed  the  myriad  other  creatures  of 
the  wild  that  came  in  dreams  that 
Indian  summer  night  to  our  little  camp- 
fire  in  the  woods,  as  I  have  told  you. 


[212] 


XV 
Winding  the  Clock 

I  HAVE  no  desire  to  interfere  in  the 
least  with  the  business  of  our 
numerous  makers  of  calendars  and 
clocks,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we 
could,  if  necessary,  do  without  such 
things  quite  well.  So  far  as  the  seasons 
are  concerned,  no  one  need  tell  you 
when  summer  is  over  or  when  winter 
approaches.  Nature  registers  clearly 
enough  not  only  the  departure  of  the 
one,  but  the  oncoming  of  the  other. 
The  sun  might  frequently  mislead  you 
if  you  had  regard  only  for  tempera- 
tures, but  you  have  only  to  observe 
the  roadsides  or  the  fields  by  day,  and 
the  sky  by  night,  to  know  what  is 
happening.  Many  are  too  busy  during 

[213] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

working  hours  to  take  note  of  what  is 
being  recorded  by  the  migration  of 
birds  or  the  fruitions  of  trees  and 
plants,  and  it  must  be  admitted  that 
those  do  not  always  tell  the  truth, 
astronomically  speaking;  but  when 
the  great  but  somewhat  moody  centre 
of  our  solar  system  sinks  below  the 
horizon  there  are  "markers"  that  are 
absolutely  dependeable.  They  may 
be  consulted  with  perfect  assurance. 
When  red  Antares  hangs  low  in  the 
southwest,  when  Arcturus  approaches 
each  evening  nearer  and  nearer  the 
wooded  western  hills,  you  do  not  need 
to  be  told  that  the  days  of  the  katydids 
and  crickets  are  numbered.  When 
Capella  hangs  out  his  great  lantern  in 
the  far  northeast  and  Aldebaran,  with 
the  Pleiades,  comes  up  out  of  the 
eastern  shadows,  you  may  know  to  a 
certainty  that  it  is  time  to  order  the 
coal,  no  matter  what  the  thermometer 
may  be  telling  you,  and,  observing 
these  things,  I  know  that  we  shall  soon 

[214] 


Winding  the  Clock 


be  on  our  way  back  to  the  joys  and  the 
sorrows,  the  comedies  and  tragedies  that 
make  up  life  in  High- Way  Land. 

I  am  not  much  of  a  believer  in 
astrology.  Still,  it  is  interesting.  I 
know  little  about  it  in  any  technical 
sense.  I  have  never  been  especially 
concerned  as  to  what  the  planets  and 
constellations  were  doing  on  the  Sep- 
tember night  of  my  own  nativity. 
However,  from  an  entry  in  the  old 
family  Bible  I  have  been  able  to  figure 
that  Lyra  was  near  the  zenith.  Lyra 
is  of  course  the  lyre  of  the  Heavens, 
and  the  lyre  is  the  symbol  used  by 
artists  to  indicate  Music  and  Poesy. 
I  confess  that  these  have  always  made 
a  great  appeal  to  me,  and  Vega,  who 
presides  over  that  group  of  stars,  blaz- 
ing overhead  with  amazing  purity  of 
light,  always  seemed  to  me  to  stand 
for  high  and  firmly-fixed  ideals;  and 
sometimes  I  try  to  "make  believe" 
that  she  is  the  one  particular  celestial 
body  to  which  my  life-line  was  origi- 

[215] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

nally  hitched.     But  how  sadly  have  I 
failed  to  keep  it  taut! 

I  spoke  in  the  beginning  of  our  hav- 
ing been  late  this  year  in  our  annual 
migration  to  the  country;  and  the 
times  in  general  are  so  out  of  joint, 
everything  in  the  business  and  financial 
world  so  "topsy-turvy,"  that  we  are 
compelled  to  go  back  to  "the  mill" 
earlier  than  usual,  so  it  has  been  a 
comparatively  short  respite  this  time 
from  the  accustomed  grind.  The  stellar 
clock  that  measures  the  length  of  our 
summer  joys  tells  me  it  is  time  to  go. 
How  short  has  been  the  day!  Let 
Robert  Burns  express  it: 

"Our  pleasures  are  as  poppies  spread, 
You  seize  the  flower,  its  bloom  is  shed, 
Or,  like  a  snowflake  on  the  river, 
A  moment  white,  then  gone  forever." 

We  all  know  that  money  has  wings. 
That  eagle  on  the  minted  gold  is  the 
right  bird  in  the  right  place.  Reputa- 
tions, too,  are  but  bubbles  that  burst 
sometimes  when  you  least  expect. 
[216] 


Winding  the  Clock 


Love  itself,  which  after  all  is  the  great- 
est thing  in  all  the  world,  is  always 
pictured  by  a  Cupid  equipped  for 
flight.  I  take  exception  though  to 
that.  The  idea  is  of  Hellenic  origin, 
developed  and  adopted  by  the  Latin 
races.  The  passion-dominated  peoples 
of  Aegean  and  Mediterranean  shores 
themselves  supply  historic  instances  of 
devotion  that  rose  above  ambition  and 
even  death  itself.  Hero  and  Leander, 
Juliet  and  her  Romeo,  Egypt  and  Mark 
Antony,  Heloise  and  Abelard — a  thou- 
sand such  immortalized  in  song  and 
story,  in  tragedy  and  Grand  Opera,  on 
canvas  and  in  marble. 

The  French  have  a  saying  "L5  amitie 
est  1'amour  sans  ailes" — friendship  is 
Love  without  wings;  but  I  have  an 
idea  that  the  generally  accepted  con- 
cept is  based  upon  the  fact  that  in  a 
very  large  number  of  instances  that 
which  leads  to  Gretna  Green  or  the 
nearest  licensing  station  is  not  real 
love  at  all.  The  genuine,  lasting  article 
[217] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

comes  from  we  know  not  where.  Prob- 
ably from  the  skies;  certainly  not 
from  earth.  It  asks  only  to  serve  and 
sacrifice,  and  in  this  is  written  all  that 
is  best  and  noblest  in  the  passing  of 
the  generations.  It  is  self-abasing, 
strong  as  the  mid-day  sun,  tender,  if 
need  be,  as  the  moonlight.  It  requires 
neither  prompting  nor  directing.  It 
knows  but  one  course,  and  can  go  no 
other;  and  in  its  radiance  even  the 
humblest  are  glorified  and  exalted 
above  the  level  of  the  beasts. 

Speaking  of  Cupid  and  his  alleged 
wings,  of  stars  and  constellations,  I  am 
reminded  that  I  gave  a  Venus  party 
about  four  o'clock  one  morning  last 
July.  That  is  to  say,  I  invited  anyone 
around  the  house  who  cared  to  come  to 
join  me  in  seeing  a  worth-while  show 
in  evidence  this  summer  just  before 
the  dawn;  but  nobody  came  to  view 
it  with  me. 

I  was  not  just  sure  as  to  what  might 
happen  to  me  if  any  of  the  neighbors 
[218] 


Winding  the  Clock 


chanced  to  see  me  prowling  around  at 
that  unreasonable  hour.  I  knew  that 
the  party  would  not  last  more  than 
ten  or  fifteen  minutes  anyhow,  and, 
figuring  upon  going  back  to  bed  for  a 
nice  morning  "snooze,"  I  did  not  deem 
it  necessary  to  get  into  starched  linen, 
laced  shoes  and  conventional  garb,  so, 
armed  with  my  binoculars,  I  opened 
the  front  door  as  carefully  as  possible, 
and  in  closing  it  took  special  pains  not 
to  make  a  noise.  I  then  tiptoed  down 
the  walk  to  the  front  gate,  lest  neighbor 
"Bill"  on  the  one  side  or  "Aleck"  on 
the  other  hear  my  footsteps,  see  a 
bath-robed  figure  stealing  out  into  the 
uncertain  light  prevailing  at  that  hour, 
and  think  that  they  had  "the  drop" 
on  some  probably  dangerous  disturber 
of  the  peace;  and  the  more  I  thought 
of  the  necessity  for  such  a  sneaking 
performance  the  madder  I  grew. 

Why  couldn't  a  perfectly  sane,  ra- 
tional person,  without  the  slightest 
thought  of  any  unworthy  purpose  in 

[219] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

his  mind,  without  any  desire  to  rob  a 
hen  roost  or  commit  a  crime  of  any 
sort  against  anybody,  get  up  at  any 
hour  he  pleased,  and  walk  boldly  and 
man-fashion  out  through  his  own  door- 
way, through  his  own  lawn,  through 
his  own  gate,  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or 
night  he  saw  fit,  without  having  to 
play  the  part  of  a  wretch  outside  the 
law?  I  was  not  accustomed  to  such 
tactics,  and  I  did  not  like  it;  but  I  was 
going  to  see  Venus,  our  nearest  celestial 
neighbor,  in  one  of  her  most  brilliant 
moods,  now  at  the  nearest  point  in  her 
orbit,  at  any  cost  to  my  pride  and  self- 
respect;  so  I  went  through  with  it. 

I  will  not  undertake  any  description 
of  the  golden  crescent  that  was  dis- 
closed by  the  glasses  in  my  hands.  I 
saw  what  I  set  out  to  see,  and  got  back 
to  bed  without  being  shot  for  a  burglar, 
and  that  is  something  in  this  land  of 
conventionalities!  If  any  of  the  rest 
of  you  care  to  know  how  the  planet 
carries  her  glory  in  this  particular 
[  220  ] 


Winding  the  Clock 


position,  with  reference  to  the  sun  and 
earth,  you  can  go  through  just  what  I 
had  to  do;  watch  for  the  opportunity 
in  your  astronomical  almanacs,  and 
find  out  for  yourselves.  But  I  cannot 
become  reconciled  to  this  inability  to 
do  the  things  that  Nature  clearly  gives 
one  the  right  to  do  without  being  sus- 
pected of  being  an  outcast  from  society 
as  organized.  I  am  therefore  prepared 
to  say  that  Robinson  Crusoe  in  his 
South  Sea  freedom  tumbled  into  good 
fortune  instead  of  trouble. 

All  day  long  the  rain  has  been  run- 
ning steadily  down  the  spouts  hidden 
in  the  greenery  of  the  walls.  All  day 
long  I  have  heard  the  drip-drip-drip 
from  the  overhanging  oaks.  There  is 
a  hole  in  one  of  the  gutters  that  will 
have  to  be  repaired  if  all  this  sky-born 
water  is  to  be  saved;  and  through  this 
crack  a  cataract  in  miniature  is  spat- 
tering about  the  base  of  the  big  mock- 
orange  bush  that  shelters  the  doorway 
of  the  dining  room,  and  threatening  to 
[221 1 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

flood  the  area-way  that  leads  down  to 
the  cellar  where  the  coal  bins,  gas 
machine  and  heaters  are  waiting  to 
supplement  the  open  fire  when  frosty 
evenings  come.  These  will  soon  be 
with  us;  I  know  the  signs  well  enough. 
That  little  field  mouse  we  caught  in 
the  trap  yesterday  may  not  be  wise  to 
the  ways  of  women  housekeepers,  but 
he  could  tell  you  that  summer  days  are 
almost  over,  and  was  looking  forward 
to  the  time  when  snow  and  ice  would 
make  a  meadow  home  uncomfortable 
for  one  so  thinly  clad* 

Already  we,  too,  are  preparing  to  go, 
for  now  near  the  twentieth  time. 
Probably  there  are  snares  well-baited 
set  for  us  also  in  town.  I  know  that 
when  State  Street  merchants,  at  this 
stage  of  war  liquidation,  still  ask  $18 
for  a  pair  of  shoes,  profiteering  is  not  a 
thing  of  the  past,  and  that  those  who 
aspire  to  go  along  with  the  crowd  may 
as  well  be  prepared  to  put  up  their 
hands  while  their  pockets  are  properly 

[222] 


Winding  the  Clock 


turned  inside  out.  And  if  you  happen 
to  be  in  need  of  furs — good  night  to  the 
balance  in  the  bank!  Eskimos  pay  no 
such  prices  for  skins,  and  Samoan 
women  are  not  charged  $35°  each  f°r 
dinner  gowns.  The  more  we  spend  of 
course  the  more  we  have  to  make. 
The  more  we  make  the  more  we  spend. 
And  there  you  are !  The  endless  chain ! 
I  cannot  locate  any  coin  out  here  in 
these  hedges  of  mine.  There  are  no 
certified  checks  to  be  culled  in  that  bed 
of  cannas.  There  is  not  a  dollar  in 
that  dogwood,  nor  a  penny  in  that 
petunia.  There  will  probably  not  be 
copies  enough  of  this  altogether  ques- 
tionable comment  sold  to  pay  for  the 
printing  and  binding  of  this  book,  so  I 
am  hurrying  on  now  to  a  close.  I 
have  probably  idled  too  long  already. 
But,  men  and  brethren,  I  have  had 
nearly  ninety  days  and  nights  with  the 
best  friend  any  man,  woman  or  child 
can  ever  have,  and  I  have  gained 
something  that  is  not  going  to  be  taken 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

from  me  right  away  when  I  get  back 
to  the  mines  in  which  all  have  to  work. 
If  you  want  the  card,  here  it  is,  in- 
scribed very  simply:  "Nature — ad- 
dress: any  old  place  out-of-doors." 

At  sun-down  last  night  I  heard  the 
plaint  of  plover,  coming  from  some- 
where across  the  open  spaces.  To- 
night I  will  have  one  final  session  with 
the  fireplace,  and  tomorrow  the  last 
thing  I  shall  do  before  we  leave  will  be 
to  wind  up  the  old  four-posted  clock  in 
the  corner,  just  for  luck.  Then  we  will 
lock  the  doors,  and  head  back  to  resume 
a  place  in  the  old  world's  work  that 
may,  or  may  not,  be  of  more  im- 
portance than  walks  and  talks  with 
birds  and  bees  and  butterflies  and 
thistle-down.  Who  knows? 

Farewell!    Dear  Dumbiedykes!    A  long  fare- 
well 

To  all  thy  joys! 

Farewell  to  flowery  glades  and  vine-clad  walls ! 
Farewell  to  quiet  shades  and  wildwood  calls! 
The  sands  have  run. 

[224] 


Winding  the  Clock 


Farewell!     Dear  Dumbiedykes !    Again    fare- 
well! 

I  love  thee  still. 

The  rain  upon  the  roof,  the  ingle  nook, 
The  glow  upon  the  hearth,  the  open  book, 
When  clouds  obscure  the  sun. 

Farewell!    Dear  Dumbiedykes!     A  fond  fare- 
well! 

The  birds  have  flown, 
And  evening  shadows  falling  fast 
In  darkness  veil  the  radiant  past. 
The  day  is  done. 

Farewell!      Dear    Dumbiedykes!      Still    fare 

thee  well! 
The  fire  burns  low. 

I  leave  thee  to  thy  dreams  and  memories  sweet, 
And  visions  fair  of  happiness  complete! 
The  end  has  come. 


XVI 

High-Way  Land 

AND  a  wonderful  land  is  High- Way 
Land 

If  only  you  understand! 

You  must  first  leave  all  dreams  of  the 
idle  hours 

With  the  fields  and  the  forests  and 
meadow  flowers, 

And  cast  all  your  pictures  of  sunsets 
and  showers 

To  the  four  winds  of  Heaven,  and  look 
for  the  towers 

That  speak  of  the  world  and  its  har- 
nessed powers, 

When  you  enter  High- Way  Land. 

It  calls  for  your  best,  this  High-Way 

Land, 

It's  no  place  for  those  who  would  shirk; 
[227] 


New  Walks  in  Old  Ways 

There  is  work  to  be  done,  and  fights 

to  be  won, 
If  you  hold  your  place  in  the  grilling 

race 
And  will  stand  for  the  gaff  and  the 

killing  pace, 
And  fall  in  your  tracks,  as  fall  you 

must, 
While  the  crowd  whirls  by  in  a  cloud 

of  dust — 
For  that  is  the  law  of  the  High- Way 

Land. 

Still  it's  not  all  bad  land,  this  High- 
Way  Land, 

If  you  keep  to  the  right  and  don't  sell 
a  good  name 

For  the  glittering  baubles  of  gain  and 
fame. 

But  the  day  will  come  when  the  road 
is  hard, 

When   toil   as   you   may   the   way   is 
barred, 

When  torn  by  doubts,  and  o'erwhelmed 
by  fears, 

[228] 


High- Way  Land 


Your  courage  fails  and  you're  near  to 

tears, 
As  you  struggle  on  through  unfruitful 

years, 
And  you  grope  in  the  dark  for  a  helping 

hand, — 
The  sun's  shining  somewhere  in  By- 

Way  Land. 


229] 


PRINTED  BY  R.  R.  DONNELLEY 
AND  SONS  COMPANY  AT  THE 
LAKESIDE  PRESS,  CHICAGO,  ILL. 


BRANCH    OF    THE    COLLEGE    OF    AGRICULTURE 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


5m-8,'26 


. ;-irt.'.»,    A 


Hew  vyal 


in  old 


469700 


N4 


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